The Keffer Crew

Busy Weekend

2010-10-25T11:40:00.009-05:00

Busy, busy, busy but a great weekend! Mark Thomas was supposed to have his first camp out with his new Troop but some crazy northeast Texas weather swept through so it got canceled. But there's no disappointment in this house, not with Mark for a Dad. So he and MT camped out on the back porch. Lit a fire in the gas fireplace and plugged in the radio to listen to the Rangers win the AL Championship! Then the next day it was Raingutter Regatta time! Mark and the boys had mastered the design of Pinewood Derby cars so the boats were new to us but MT got 4th place. He was already mapping out his design for next year on his way home.

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Then we went to Carson's soccer game. She plays for FC Dallas, a premier club here in the metroplex and she's so fun to watch! Her skills are fabulous and every year she just gets better and better. I had wanted to get some good pics of her but again the weather blew through and the game was called off before of a tornado in the area.

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Then we did a little laundry....Whiskers likes to lounge in the craziest of places but the blankets were warm so I she decided to just get comfy.

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And then on Sunday Max had an opportunity of a lifetime to perform with the choir at Grace at the Youth Choir Festival. It was held at St. Andrews United Methodist church and there were 600 teenagers who sang their praises to the Lord. One of the many blessings we have experienced in this move has been the youth choir. Every Sunday during the early service we have a 90 member youth choir who sings. They practice once a week and then in the summer travel on choir tour. This summer they're heading out west and will stop along the way to see the Grand Canyon as well as other attractions. Max has really enjoyed it. I had to buy him some new black slacks and a white dress shirt since he just keeps growing and growing but he looked so handsome! Of course I'm biased but he's something else. Quite the charmer.

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The director, Dr. Anton Armstrong, from St. Olaf College did an amazing job presenting a concert of 6 songs. The kids were there from 1:30-5:15 and you would have thought they'd been practicing for months. Of course our choir director had done a great job preparing our kids too! But listening to them all sing was so heavenly, like listening to a chorus of angels.

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And last but not least, the moon. It was simply stunning. I could get very close with my telephoto lens but it still did not do it justice.

Family and Picture Update

2010-10-22T10:10:00.007-05:00

This post is almost a month late. What can I say it's baseball season and there are photos depicting our evenings related to that subject down at the bottom. BUT, Ella turned 8 this month. She always starts off the birthday celebration train and it makes my life a tad difficult until March when they're all 4 back to evens. I prefer all evens or all odds when telling people their ages because it's just easier on my brain. But for now the kids are 8, 9, 11 and 13. Ella is so lucky to have some good little gal pals already for just having moved here. And of course she's got her fabulous cousins. So two of Ella's friends from school came over and then our neighbors next door have two precious daughters and they came over too a little later. Ella had a great birthday celebration!

Payton, Ella, Reese, Molly and Paige

What we commonly refer to as TRIPLE TROUBLE!

Mark Thomas had free time in art the
day of the party so he created this
one-of-a-kind hat and proudly let
Ella wear it at the party!

Ella's crazy face!

Bear was spade last week. She did fine
but the anesthesia was hilarious!
She just stood still staring at the floor
and would not move at all. Took almost
an entire day for it to all wear off.
Ben was an excellent care giver!

This is how you'll find Mark Thomas most
days after he's come home from school.
Bless his heart he just passes out
when he gets home!

I went to Molly's football game last weekend.
What an experience that was! Those
football parents were crazy! And I don't
say that lightly. We are a major sports
family and I have been to games all
over the place but these parents were out
of control. I really had to restrain myself
to not stand up and say something. I asked
Molly after the game, "do you hear those
parents yelling while you're cheering?" and
she said, "yes, but they're yelling at the
football players not the cheerleaders."
Too cute, but really parents, what kind
of an example are we setting when we
go to our kids' sports events. Everyone
is watching. All the time!

And this would be our weekly run down. Baseball
games usually 4 out of 5 nights a week and
sometimes all three will play on the same
night! So this evening, we grabbed dinner
at our favorite, Sonic, headed to the ball
park AND did homework in the bleachers!
Thank goodness our kids are A-B students
because our lives could be much more
difficult if it took us so much longer
to complete assignments.

My future MAJOR LEAGUE STARS!!!
We are loving cheering on the Rangers and
are excited for Game 6 tonight!

I gave all three of the boys hair cuts last week.
And I must say I was rather impressed with
myself. I paid $60 for someone to cut all
three last month and just thought
I can do that. Since they've out grown
the buzz cuts it's become more complicated
but I watched and learned. And
all three clients of mine were very pleased.

And Max only has one more game this season.
It's been a rough season for him. He's had two
major injuries. One documented in a previous
post and the most recent one too graphic
to publish photos. It required staples
near his ankle and thankfully it's healing,
not that well but it is healing. He has
really excelled this season under "Coach Charlie"
and is already ready for Spring ball. I am
hoping for an injury free season in the Spring.

He's quite the base stealer now.

Ok, so now we're pretty much caught up. And it's almost November. Where does the time go? We are still patiently waiting for our house to sell in Beaumont. We lowered the price this week and are hopeful that it will generate some activity. The new elementary school is almost complete and that should be a huge draw we hope. For now we're thankful that my parents are being so gracious to allow us to stay with them. People always say "oh my goodness that must be so rough" but really it's not. When you have parents as wonderful as both Mark and I do it's something that we do not take for granted.

We have narrowed down the development we want to live in and have decided to build. The plans have been defined and the kids have chosen their prospective bedrooms. So we're excited to move in that direction once the house sells. It's been fun for all of us to dream and start to plan for the future. God's timing is always perfect and we're very aware of his provision. So we wait patiently, trusting in his call to bring us to Plano and we look forward to the plans he has set before us.

Homecoming Festivities and Cowboy Stadium

2010-09-27T10:47:00.006-05:00

Homecoming last week was a lot of fun. Prosper is "small" compared to most school districts in the metroplex and very out in the country so we experienced our first homecoming week in a true small Texas football obsessed town. Max played during the 7th grade football game and the band did a great job! I love that Max is in percussion because no matter where you are standing or how well you can see you CAN always hear the drums. My parents met us at the game and we all sat in the stands and cheered on the Eagles.

We just love our superintendent. Not since New York did we feel like the superintendent truly had an impact on the schools. Dr. Watkins is everywhere! He rotates around the different campuses each week and is always out front helping kids out of the cars in the morning. He knows our kids by name already and even shouted out to Max during the parade route. He's from Southeast Texas so once he found out we had moved from Beaumont, we had an instant connection. We couldn't be more thrilled with the school district.

Max walked around with several of his friends during the parade and Ben hung out with a new friend who lives just down the street from us. Ella was asked to RIDE on a float and throw candy with her two new best buds, twins in her class, Paige and Payton. Their parents own the Equestrian Center just next door to us so Ella is now asking for jeans and boots since the twins' dad said he'd put her up on a horse next time she comes over. Mark Thomas sat by me during the parade. We sat in the back of the pick up truck and it seemed like every other float that drove by had someone yelling, "Hey Mark" on it. Totally cracked me up. MT makes friends wherever he goes. He took an Under Armour satchel to the parade and came home with WAY too much candy.

You are not a true Prosperite until your car has a big "P" on the back. I saw this awesome zebra one at the parade. I put one on the back of the truck the second week of school and when the kids came home that day they shouted as they walked up the drive way, "we got a P!". So we are now completely legit!

On Sunday Mark took three of the kids to Cowboy Stadium for a special tour that the Scouts were holding. Ella said to me before she left as she was doing her hair, "bow or no bow?" and I said, "the bow looks cute" and she said, "but it might fall out on the baseball field". Sweet little darling girl of mine, does not have a sports bone in her body. But she loved going to the stadium and told me all about the cheerleaders' locker room! She turns 8 tomorrow! Can't believe it!

Heavy Hearts

2010-09-14T10:00:00.002-05:00

This will be a short post because I don't want to it turn into anything that sounds like I'm complaining. We are so happy to be in this new environment. The kids are adjusting to their schools and we're happy with the "smallness" of the community, if such a thing exists in the Dallas area. It's not St. Anne's and we still have moments where that saddens us but we are thankful that Prosper offers some familiarity in terms of class sizes and community.

We are also thoroughly enjoying the new church. I don't want anyone to read into this the wrong way and I honestly would not have thought I'd feel this way but sometimes it's in the "numbers". Whether you worship in a small church; remembering the rural church in Rewey, Wisconsin, Mark would fill the pulpit in during seminary, to the massive non-denominational churches my parents have often worshipped at, the presence of the Lord is still there. I know that to be very true but sometimes you long for what "numbers" can do. I LOVE the ministry of music and sometimes when you're in worship and the congregation is singing a hymn, you can honestly hear your voice above all others. Maybe that's because people don't feel that confident in their own voice or maybe it's because the space between the pews is too large so that you aren't sitting shoulder to shoulder with anyone. Whatever the reason, God calls for us to sing our praises to Him and He's undoubtedly worthy of our praise.

So the pews are full, the congregation sings loudly, the praise echos throughout the sanctuary and MY heart is filled with a joy that reaches deep into my soul when I am praising God with our new community at Grace. And the kids are loving their new congregation too. It's never a compare and contrast. It's just a thankfulness of where God has called us to and it's a privilege to serve along fellow believers.

With that said, we completely, totally, without a doubt, sincerely believe that God has called us to this time and this place. We would not be here if we did not believe that. So we also believe that God will provide for all our needs. Right now those needs are great. For years, we have been completely aware of how financially tied to life we are and we don't want to live that way any longer. It's cliche to some but after taking the Dave Ramsey course, we truly do "want to live like no one else so that we CAN live like no one else." We still long to be in our own home again and are struggling to determine at this point when that may be and what that home may look like for us as a family of six.

But before we can even begin to lay out that plan we desperately need our home in Beaumont to sell. So our hearts are heavy this week as the bills are piling up and without my additional income, it's not possible to pay them all at one time and still have left overs for the necessities such as food and gas. So I ask, to whomever may come upon this blog, that you please join us in prayer. Prayer that our house will sell. We have been asking that it sell by the end of September at 90% of what we're asking for it. Pray that our hearts would not be troubled by the bills that seem to be flowing out of my bill box. I know that our Father cares for us like he does the birds of the air and the flowers in the field so I long to feel that peace. Peace that I know comes only from Him. God is our ultimate provider and we are trusting that day by day we will be able to keep up with our earthly demands while always looking towards Heaven, mindful that everything we have comes from above; and that nothing is truly ours.

Our little Dancer

2010-08-30T20:46:00.002-05:00

Ella started dance tonight. She is taking ballet, tap and jazz. I feel horrible that while in Beaumont we did not make that a priority. So now whatever it takes we will get her there. She spends so much time cheering on her brothers and spends way too much time at the ball park so thankfully I found a place where she can take all three classes on the same night. And her teacher is very accomplished. She also used to be a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader!

Our growing Menagerie

2010-08-30T20:36:00.004-05:00

Bear is such a wonderful dog. She went to the ball park with us on Saturday and cheered on her boys. She has been having a wonderful time with her cousin, Haley, my sister Heather's dog. She even went to a local dog park on Sunday. She's very social!

Whiskers has made the adjustment to Prosper fairly well. A pre-requisite of her moving into Papa's house was that she had to be de-clawed. She was a trooper and traveled up from Beaumont with just a little car sickness. The house is so much larger than ours that we had to get a new collar with a bell so that we'd be able to find her. She used to go outside in Beaumont all the time but for now she's content to stay inside, just staring out the windows.

And last but not least we've added a fire belly frog. Ben was working on his amphibian merit badge for scouts so instead of capturing a local frog, off to Petsmart we went. Now nearly $100 later "Chris" has a pretty decked out pad. He recently upgraded to a 10 gallon tank with a special rock ledge and it's filled with 4 inches of water so it's fun to watch him swim around.

Good Baseball and Bad Baseball

2010-08-30T14:59:00.010-05:00

Good baseball is when all the boys are having fun! When their skills are continuing to develop and when hopefully we're winning. But each of them have great coaches. Every time we move, I immediately try to plug them into things they enjoy. So I signed them up for baseball in McKinney and Max and Ben have the same coach. He's been such a great influence already. He had the boy's names monogrammed on their hats and placed quotes on the inside of their bills. Max's team quote is "Never, ever give up" by Winston Churchill and Ben's quote is "Just keep moving forward" by Walt Disney. He reminds the kids often of their quotes and as a way of encouraging their teammates the boys are instructed to touch their bills when someone on the team is struggling. I just love that! Mark Thomas was bumped up to a AA advanced team and they're learning some great skills. Mark Thomas did awesome pitching for his team. We were so proud of him. It's always tricky when you move and some teams already have their assigned players but I feel quite confident after the coach saw MT's arm he'll be pitching often.

Poor Ben was so exhausted after his third game that he begged to come home and take a nap. We drove home quickly before the 9 p.m. game so he could shower and he took in a little cuddle time with Bear.

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This would be bad baseball. During Ben's fourth game of the day which didn't start until 9 p.m. Max was playing a pick up game on an adjoining field. Happens all the time so I didn't think much about it. However now that the boys are older and obviously have stronger arms, which makes the pitch faster as well as the hits harder, I should have been more aware of the danger. So lesson here is don't allow them to even "play" a game for fun without the proper equipment. Especially the catcher. Max was catching and a foul tip decided to have some fun with his face. I was intently watching Ben's game when he ran over to me with this terrified look on his face and blood pouring out of his nose and mouth. I quickly ran him to the bathroom trying to stop the bleeding to assess the damage when he said, "my teeth, Mom. They're all messed up." Well, three of them were quite out of place! Without any orthodontic work at all Max's teeth have always been perfectly STRAIGHT, so when I pulled the t-shirt away from his nose and mouth to take a look at his teeth, I quickly realized we had a BIG problem.

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Our new dentist did not have emergency hours so I called my sister and she gave me their dentist's number and he immediately called back and said I should bring Max into his office. So off we went at 11:00 p.m. to the dentist and didn't get back in the car until after 1:00 a.m. Dr. Ty was amazing! Max's three teeth were pushed back up into his gums and repositioned and now they're held in place with a wire like splint which he'll have for two weeks. His teeth look good now but his poor lip and nose are rather swollen. He stayed home from school today but will need to head back tomorrow because it could be days before the massive hematoma corrects itself. His new principal called this afternoon to check on him after the attendance clerk had let her know what had happened. I can not get over how wonderful our new school district has been. She said she'd let all of his teachers know what happened so they could be aware of his needs tomorrow and so that they would keep an eye out for him.

Ben's Day of Glory

2010-08-30T13:59:00.009-05:00

We love some good baseball and there was plenty to be had last Saturday! All three boys were in a pre-season tournament. We had to be at the ball park at 7:15 a.m. for the first game. Both Mark Thomas and Max were elminated during their second games but Ben's team was on a roll. They won their first game of the morning fairly easily and then played again at 3. During that game Ben was the last at bat with the game tied and with two runners on base and two strikes he hit the game winning RBI. The pics above captured what ensued afterwards. He was so excited and so was everyone else.

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He was catcher for the first time on this team and although he hasn't played that position often I think we've found his spot! He was so aggressive and so quick. Popping up and throwing quickly on target to first and third bases and was guarding that home plate as if his life depended on it. During the third game of the day with a runner coming to home to win the game, he scooped up a loose ball at the back stop and lunged to tag the runner out ending the game. Again the crowd went wild!

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Unfortunately after playing 3 games in the heat of North Texas by the time they played again at 9 that night there was hardly any energy left. They lost but we were still winners. A new team, with no regular season games under their belt yet they showed what they're really made of and we're all super excited to see them play this season. And we are SO proud of OUR Ben!

Music Disclaimer

2010-08-24T10:39:00.001-05:00

I apologize for anyone that logged onto the blog over the last few days. I about had a heart attack this morning when I logged on and heard some crazy music. I have no idea how the playlist got so messed up. So just so you know I didn't create that one. I changed it but only added a few songs for right now. My brain is so focused on the kids and them adjusting to school that it's just not in musical mode right now.

Back to School

2010-08-24T09:59:00.009-05:00

Every year at Grace they ask the children to bring their backpacks to church right before school starts. Mark was able to offer a special blessing for the children. They were each given a really neat tag, encouraging them "to let their light shine" and even the big kids who were too big to sit on the chancel picked some up.

We were all ready for back to school. School supplies were purchased, new clothes were set out waiting to be put on and the lunches were packed. We were going to use the bus routes again. The kids loved riding the bus in New York so they were excited to try it here. Well, as you can see the only photo I got of them as I prepared to snap them getting off the bus is of the bus coming down the street. That's because after I snapped that shot, I went across the street, camera zoomed in on the bus door and waited along with Mark for the younger three to get off the bus. No Keffer kids got off the bus. I stepped inside the bus and the bus driver didn't know where they were. He called the bus barn and they didn't know where they were either. So he advised me to call their school and see what bus they had gotten onto and then he drove out of the neighborhood!

So, while trying not to panic. I called Mark Thomas and Ella's school. Ben is at the middle school. They didn't know what bus they had gotten on either. The secretary was going to find out and call me back. Just about then another bus drove up in front of our house. Nearly 50 minutes after the kids were supposed to be home, Ben, MT and Ella hopped off the bus.

So thankful they were home. We asked them what happened. They got on the wrong bus obviously and then when they realized it they told the bus driver. He asked where they lived and one said, "Whitley Place, no Whispering Meadows" and then MT said, "no, it's Whispering Farms". So the bus driver asked Ben what his address was and he said, "I don't know." I just laughed and laughed. I never even thought to tell the kids the new address. Since we're living with my parents it escaped me. And then to make matters worse, Mark just had our cell numbers changed so none of the kids have memorized those and Ben left his cell phone at the church the night before. Seems like I may need to give the responsible 7 year old her OWN phone and we're going to need to have a memorization clinic of all new pertinent info! Just glad they got home.

Ella drew a picture for her teacher the night before school. I was so amazed. She spelled nervous right and used the correct spelling of "there" in her last sentence. She's something else for 7!

Bear just sacked out on the couch waiting for the kids to come home.

Summer is almost over

2010-08-20T09:59:00.002-05:00

Well, I had every intention of being on here more this summer since I knew I would not be working. Who would have thought that I would feel less tired when I WAS actually working a full time job. Staying home with the kids this summer has been exhausting. Don't get me wrong, I have loved being with them and we've been able to do a lot of fun things together BUT I am still more than ready for them to start school on Monday.

We are adapting to our new surroundings very well. We worshipped for the first time last Sunday at our new church and all felt very, very welcomed. We had been greatly anticipating the contemporary worship service and it did not disappoint. There is just something about music that stirs the soul and hearing everyone in the congregation lift their praises to the Lord was truly magnificent. The kids are loving the youth activities. Both Max and Ben went to Adventure Landing this week and had a blast. Max called me while he was there to tell me he was kicked out of the go-carts for "accidentally" bumping into someone when they pulled into the lanes to get out. Great, right? Well everyone thought it was funny so I guess he's not off to too bad of a start. Ben is loving being in middle school. The last two years it was becoming increasingly more difficult to get him to participate in Sunday school and events at church because he just felt like there were too babyish for him. That age is hard so we're thankful he's now technically old enough to do the big kid stuff!

School starts on Monday and our 4 kids will be on 3 different campuses. I love how Prosper schools are set up. Kindergarten through 4th grade is one school, 5th and 6th in one school, 7th and 8th in one school and then 9th-12th in one school. The facilities here are amazing. So far we've been to Max and Ben's school and we've got their lockers all set up for the first day of school. We took a little trip to The Container Store, heavenly I might add, and got some goodies for them to organize their new space. We all had fun setting it up! Tonight I go with Mark Thomas and Ella to meet their new teachers and see their class rooms.

Our house is still on the market and we are praying that God would provide a buyer by the end of September at 90% of the asking price. We know that God will put his own stamp on our requests and we're anxious to see His hands at work. He is faithful to provide for us always and we know that the sale of our house will happen in His time. For now we're incredibly grateful that my parents have allowed us to infiltrate their space and we're enjoying being with them. You might want to check in with them to see if they're still enjoying us.

New move, New business

2010-07-06T10:31:00.005-05:00

I'm back in Beaumont today. Getting a late start since Mark and I had dinner last night at McAllister's and I drank a 32 ounce glass of sweet tea! Ummm, good but not good at helping me go to sleep. In fact, I was up until a little after 1:00 a.m. because I could NOT fall asleep. So my brain just mulled over all the changes that are about to occur.

Moving is bringing about a lot of changes. One of which I'm very excited about! I have decided to launch my own business in creating custom invitations. God greatly blessed me with a job opportunity here in Beaumont that allowed me to fall back on skills I had acquired while in high school. The ability to layout text and artwork came from my years in yearbook and newspaper. I had no idea I'd fall so in love with the invitation world and enjoy working with brides so much! So my new endeavor is to try to make a go at my own business. I will launch a website soon, hopefully by the end of next week and then see what doors open.

E. Clare is named after my precious Ella Clare. She's the daughter I never thought I'd have, truly not knowing how much my heart longed for one. My three boys are amazing and each love on me in different ways but the love I receive from Ella is different. She and I are connected in a special way...and I am constantly amazed at her ability to hang tough with all the craziness in our house. We both MUST stick together. So although Mark Thomas is the only one who has expressed a concern for why the business is not named for him, we are embarking on this new journey. God willing it will provide income for our family and allow each of us the joy of using our talents. The kids are all skilled at helping me in various ways and Max has already caught my vision of opening a store. He wants to be able to run the cash register! I hope and pray that E. Clare Paperie will open doors for us beyond our wildest imaginations and that the people we'll encounter will change our lives as much as I hope we'll change theirs.

Cousin Time

2010-07-03T14:09:00.007-05:00

Reese and Mark Thomas just catching up and trading their Silly Bandz.

Bath time is always fun at Mimi's house and Molly and Ella
discovered a way to make LOTS and LOTS of bubbles.

All the kids decided to make some snacks. So Reese,
Mark Thomas and Max made some puppy chow, a family favorite.
They're coating all the cereal with powdered sugar in the
trash bag, while Haley looks on hoping there will be
something that falls from the bag!

There is only one year that separates these two, almost to the day!

Carson and Ella decided to make chocolate chip cookies.

Several of us had to do some quality control on the

dough just to make sure it was satisfactory

enough to cook in the oven.

Coming Full Circle

2010-06-30T16:20:00.007-05:00

Mark Thomas photographed the skyline as we approached Dallas.

This move is like coming full circle. I have lived in a lot of places and several different states both as a child and as an adult. But I was never more upset to move than when we were transferred to Kansas from our home in Plano. My Father worked for J.C.Penney and my two sisters and I were more than familiar with the drill of moving and adjusting to new surroundings. However when we moved back to Plano for the second time we were told that we would not move again.

Sadly when I was in eighth grade that turned out not to be the case. We moved to Topeka, Kansas and my parents stayed there for nearly 12 years. We all loved living in Plano, we had a lot of friends, attended a great school and the sports, mainly soccer were awesome and continuing to grow at the time. Topeka for the most part seemed pretty awful at first. We were used to a sprawling city and when my parents took us to Topeka, my Dad showed us the store he would open at the new mall, it was on Wanamaker Road, we drove a little further down that same road and our new house was being built, and then a little further down that same road and there was the middle school, and then again a little further, the high school I would attend. It blew my mind that everything was all on the same road! We all eventually found friends there and adapted to our new surroundings but our hearts were somehow always still connected to Texas.

I graduated from high school in Topeka and longed to return to Texas, applying to Texas Tech and TCU among other schools. I was offered a scholarship at Texas Tech, visited and liked the campus but in the end was not quite ready to be that far away from home so I decided to attend Kansas State University and stayed there for three years. After my second year, I again visited Tech and even looked at apartments but again the timing was not right. I was involved with Campus Crusade for Christ and participated in two summer beach projects. One summer living in Panama City and the following summer living in San Diego. In San Diego one of my roommates went to the University of Alabama and I decided to visit her over Labor Day. I fell in love with the campus and decided to visit again that January over Winter break. I fell in love with something, or rather someone else during that visit!

Mark had just transferred to Alabama from the University of Pittsburgh. We began dating over Spring Break when I visited again and from there on things were a whirlwind. I spent part of the next summer in Italy, where we wrote letters to each other and learned how to communicate through the mail. Those letters are treasured possessions of ours. I transferred to Alabama that fall and we were engaged and married by the next summer.

My history of moving did not stop when I went to college. Mark and I have lived in several states too and those moves were both wonderful and hard. I fell in love with a part of the country I had never been to. The Northeast is beautiful and I loved living in New York so much as did the kids. But it was hard being so far away from my family. They slowly returned to Texas and were all within 45 minutes of each other for years. I'd call and they'd all be in the same house over the holidays and I'd long to be with them.

We moved to Beaumont three years later after I attended the funeral service for one of my cousins. I listened to people talk about him in a way that I simply did not know him and it was because we did not live that close to him while we were all growing up. I did not want that for my children. Beaumont was a short 5 hour drive from my family and we saw them so much more than we ever did during the first 10 years of our marriage.

Well, now God is taking us back. When Mark received a call from the APNC in Plano we were so surprised that God could actually be taking us that close to my family. Strangely enough Mark prefers the climate down here and I still long for the Northeast but being so close to my family is a concession I would gladly make. As I drove down here last week with a trailer and the kids in the truck I felt a strange sense of completion in bringing them back to a place I loved so much as a child. Our two oldest children are in middle school and Max is going into 8th grade. The grade I had just finished when we left Plano.

It is such a gift that we'll be close enough to see my family so often. I love that the kids will be able to be here in such a great area for schools and sports and that the church that God has called us to will be a place where they can grow in their faith. We have not yet been able to visit the church as a family because we're awaiting some final steps through the Presbytery but there are so many things we're excited to become a part of in this new journey.

So although we'll live in Prosper, Plano, my old stomping grounds will be where we'll spend a lot of time at the church and with the people who live there and in the surrounding area. This growing metroplex is not going to know what hit it when the Keffer Crew arrives in full force! We hope to be settled by the end of July and will be ready to get into our regular routine the second week of August. God is good, all the time and we're very thankful for the provisions he's put before us allowing us to partner in ministry with a wonderful congregation while being so close to my family.

Did you think I'd left the Planet?

2010-06-16T16:40:00.005-05:00

Photo disclaimer....there will be no photos in this post. For some reason my computer is not reading my flash drive.

Well, so much for my New Year's resolution to try and update a few times a month. March seems like forever ago and there have been so many things I wish I had posted to our blog. Honestly sometimes it's the time it takes to upload pics that bogs me down. I just wish it was faster. And sometimes it's just life in general, thinking that I'll sit down and do it and then things keep popping up.

So I'll try to recap briefly. April and May were just baseball, baseball and more baseball. With the three boys all playing we were at the fields most week nights. All of them did great. Mark Thomas' team only won 2 games during the regular season but advanced through the brackets much to our surprise to play the best team in the league. We had them on the ropes and were up by several runs when Mark Thomas was put into pitch. He caught a pop up and threw the first runner out at first and then struck out the next batter. We thought we were golden. I was standing behind the bleachers praying and trying not to cry I was so nervous for T. Some sloppy errors and some not so great calls by the umps, missing two calls that should have been outs and well....we lost. It is nothing short of pure devastation and heartbreak to see your son want a victory so badly and not achieve it. We just tried to pump him up as best as we could and let him know he did great!

Ben's team also had a great year. He played for the best coach in the league, Coach Terry Falgout and we had a great time sitting in the bleachers every game with some super fun parents. Ben's team suffered a heart breaker too, just two days after Mark Thomas. One of the biggest issues in Little League is pitch count and we had bases loaded with our lead off hitter up to bat who had already hit two home runs in the season and one grand slam. The opposing pitcher had reached his pitch limit, we knew it, the press box knew it and so did the head coach but he did not remove him. We didn't protest immediately thinking we'd be able to pull out a victory but we didn't so a protest after the game did not put us back into the tournament. Our coach did an excellent job of communicating to the kids the importance of playing fairly and winning the right way. We all knew who the real winner was even if they didn't advance in the play offs. Sometimes winning is more about character development.

And Max's team advanced through the third round too. This was his first year in the Junior League and boy was it different. Such a drastic difference to Little League. The field was huge, same distances as a Major League field except for the distance to the home run fence. I felt like I needed binoculars to see him most days. He did well. Learning to hit with more confidence and field it in quickly since the batters had to book it to even have a chance to get on base and stay there.

May brought about the end of school for Mark Thomas and Max at St. Anne's. They had a great year and we just fell in love with the school community. May Crowning, worshipping during Mass; Mark Thomas was asked to read during closing Mass and he did a great job, and wonderful teachers and parents. It's a fabulous place to learn and grow and we're thankful the kids had the opportunity.

Ben and Ella finished up at Regina and had some fun field trips. Ben got his cell phone early so he could collect numbers for the summer and one day while I was at work he texted me to see if I could come get him early. I said yes that I had to pick up Ella for something so I'd get him when I got her and he said, "ok, I'm in Port Arthur by the playground, so look for me." Well to those of you unfamiliar with the area Port Arthur is not that close. I cracked up and immediately texted back saying, "sorry bud, you'll have to wait until the bus gets back to the school." My Ben.

Well June brought about additional change. Mark and I had been praying about discerning a new call for the last year or so and what that might look like for our family. God has faithfully provided a new call for us and we're excited about this new adventure. The kids are thrilled and that makes the transition so much easier. I'll be able to post within the next few weeks exactly where we're going. Just more red tape in this Presbytery. But if we still have readers and you're still awake at this point then we'd covet your prayers over the next few weeks and months as we transition into our new surroundings. We will be putting the house up for sale the first part of July and I will venture off to our new location so hopefully it can sell quickly without me stressing out about showing a home with 4 young inhabitants. Mark's last Sunday is slated to be the first Sunday in August and then we'll start at our new post middle of August after a week of vacation in Maryland.

So, updates, updates, updates. I will try to post more regularly and include some photos in the next post. The kids have changed a ton! Growing up too quickly for me.

Opening Day

2010-03-25T19:46:00.005-05:00

Opening Day arrived the same weekend as Max's birthday! We had a fabulous weekend of sports and celebrating a milestone. We live in a BASEBALL household and we LOVE it! All three boys play and all three continue to grow and develop into great players. We have the luxury of playing year round down here in Southeast Texas. Of course it's not always easy on the bank account but we head out to Academy twice a year, ATLEAST, to get prepared to play. Max has moved up to the Junior League now so he plays at a different location but W.E.L.L. is run by committed parents who work hard so that we can have a fabulous facility. We love to watch games, eat dinner at a teriffic snack shack and cheer on our boys and other boys we've grown to know well during our three years here.

Both Ben and Max are playing for the Rangers this year!

Mark Thomas is quite the pitcher! He was put in to close up a game the other night with two runners on base and two outs. No pressure there, but he came through with a strike out to tie the game at 9. It's a lot for a 9 year to shoulder that responsibility but he did great! I was definitely sweating it out in the stands texting Mark with a pitch by pitch description.

A Teenager in the House

2010-03-25T16:59:00.008-05:00

Are we seriously old enough to have a teenager in the house? Well I guess we are since Max turned 13 on the 14th of March! I really cannot believe that my little 6 pound 4 oz first born son is a teenager. I remember when Mark and I had him we felt so unequipped to be parents and just marveled at his existence. He's been a wonderful son and continues to amaze us. I'm not saying he's perfect....because he definitely does his fair share of mixing up trouble in the house but on the whole he's a wonderful young man.

We celebrated at Buffalo Wild Wings with most of the guys from his seventh grade class. He switched schools this year and every time we're around his classmates we are reminded of why we chose to move him. It's a wonderful group of young men and their camaraderie is quite an experience. You should have seen them when they decided to take on the Extreme Wing Challenge. Each boy who wanted to participate was given a Blazing Hot Wing and they had 30 seconds to eat it and refrain from drinking anything. It was absolutely hilarious!

Max wanted to add onto his drum kit for his birthday this year. He recently received a scholarship from our church and received $250 to add towards a new piece of equipment. So off to The Guitar Center we headed and quickly spent a lot of money on a new high hat, stand, bass pedal and two new sets of sticks. But to hear him play makes it all worth it. Max has been playing the drums since he was a toddler and the rhythm patterns he creates now just blow my mind!

We're headed into the unknown with a teenager but he's got a good head on his shoulders, still tells me he loves me daily and can clean up the kitchen like you wouldn't believe. We love you Max!

Dudes and Darlins

2010-03-08T19:41:00.003-06:00

Ella got to spend a fabulous evening alone with her Daddy. Those moments are rare in this household and they had a blast! Ella has been involved in Daisies this year and she and I go to meetings every other Saturday. It's a fabulous Troop and we've been able to do several things in the community that are helping to shape her little mind.

Every year there is a Dudes and Darlins dance and the theme is obviously Western. Mark and Ella got all gussied up and I took some photos of them before they left. Earlier in the day Ella said to me, "I need to take a LONG bath, not just a play bath." She chose every element of her attire and looked just precious.

Mark said they danced and he twirled her around the room. Her smile while listening to her Daddy recount the evening was priceless.

A boy and his dog

2010-02-28T08:52:00.005-06:00

Bear has been such a wonderful addition to our household. The compromise had to be great. I had to be able to choose a dog that wouldn't shed, that much, and find the character and size the boys still needed in order to truly enjoy having a dog. Bear is all of that. She's so sweet natured. She loves to be wherever any of us are and she especially loves to sleep with us. I have to confess that for the FIRST time EVER I slept with a dog in my bed while we recently went to Dallas to help my parents move into their new house. Max and I shared a king size bed with Bear and she was more like a child. She kept moving closer and closer to me and her snoring was not that cute in the middle of the night.

She sleeps mostly with Max and Ben now because she's had a few little accidents on T's bed and he's not been that happy about it. Everyone in the house loves Bear, even Ella and she's had the most chewing casualties. Her room is just stocked of cute little edible yummies for Bear to get to when her door is left open.

But Ben. Well Ben is just smitten. He adores Bear and is by far the animal lover in our house. I wish he'd do more to help us take care of her sometimes. He enjoys the snuggling and playing but not so much of the training not to tee-tee or poop in the house chores.

Mark took T to a birthday party yesterday over in Port Neches and there's a fabulous park there called Tugboat Island, so he, Ben and Bear hung out until the party was over. Ben and Bear had a good time as seen by the photos. We're excited to take her to the baseball fields this spring.

New Musicians in the house

2010-02-21T16:09:00.005-06:00

Our family is just full of musicians. Some with natural talents and some who hope to acquire a talent. Max has always been gifted on the drums and when Ben would sit down behind the set after Max would play, he'd belt out nice rhythms himself. Well several months ago he began asking us to take violin lessons. Don't know where the urge for that instrument came from but after months of asking we decided to look into it. We have some skilled musicians at our church and one particular woman plays in the local symphony. She agreed to give Ben violin lessons and I decided to take up the cello.

Mark plays the guitar and Ella is asking to play the piano so if we could just find an instrument for MT we'd have our own road show!

Ben is a natural. Words straight from Valera, his teacher. He's taken to playing like a pro and for now while we practice holding our instruments and learning how to play certain rhythm patterns he sounds glorious. I must admit that I don't have the natural ability he seems to have been born with but I'm picking it up quickly as well. It's hard to make an ugly sound on such glorious instruments and the cello is amazing.

Valera told me it's a unique instrument because you draw it up so close to your chest that the music connects right to your heart. I just LOVE that! I have always loved the sounds of strings and it's just so much fun to be doing something with just Ben. We enjoy the time together. Chatting to and from the lessons and then practicing together at home. With 4 children it's hard to carve out that one on one time especially with all the activities they're involved in now so this has been a real blessing.

Next week we begin learning "Twinkle, Twinkle". We'll be sure to let you know when we have our first Keffer concert. And maybe I'll post a pic of myself next week.

Scouting

2010-02-21T15:57:00.003-06:00

It was a special week in the Keffer house. Ben crossed over into Boy Scouts and they had their Blue and Gold banquet. Mark rechartered Troop 221 at our church and it has just taken off. There is a group of 8 committed boys, including Max, who have worked hard over the last year and a half. Max has already earned 4 merit badges and has taken several really fun camping trips.

It's our desire that each of our boys earn their Eagle Scout pin and that the skills and training they receive in scouts will serve them well for many, many years. Ben will now join the ranks of Max and the rest of the Boy Scouts in Troop 221. Ben earned his Arrow of Light pin while crossing over and less than 10% of scouts do that. We were so proud of Ben!

4 Hour Drive

2010-02-02T18:24:00.002-06:00

Max was asked to be in a band at his new school by several eighth graders and they now have a name. Nick on the keyboard, Tristan on the guitar, Chris the volcalist and of course Max on drums make up 4 Hour Drive and they made their debut at our church talent show last weekend. They were awesome! Now that basketball is winding down and we've got a little bit of a break before baseball picks up full swing, no pun intended, they're hoping they can get in some more practice and play at another talent show at St. Jude's coming up soon. It's been a lot of fun seeing Max transition into a new level with his music. He's been drumming since he was a toddler and I have photographic evidence to prove it. He'd die before he'd let me post those so you'll just have to take my word for it. We've always thought he was awesome! There are going to be some new musicians in the house soon. More on that in my next post!!

Ben and Skylar

2010-01-30T10:35:00.004-06:00

Ben was asked to participate in the Talent Show at his school and they had their performance last night. We are so PROUD of Ben. He practiced for several weeks and was partnered with his "friend" Skylar. She's a sweet, beautiful, girl and Ben is rather enamored with her. Yesterday was her birthday and he even made her something special, which I quietly slipped to her mother at the after party. Needless to say her mother thinks Ben is rather special too.

Talent Show 2010

2010-01-30T09:32:00.004-06:00

This is the performance of Ben's fifth grade group at the Talent Show. Be sure to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the blog to pause the music that you normally hear in the background before you push play on the video. Ben did a SUPER job and we all had such a great time watching his group and all the other talented kids at his school! Such a fun evening. We all celebrated at Fuddrucker's afterward.

Day Two

2010-01-20T20:35:00.002-06:00

My hopes for a less eventful post were really quite close to being a reality. I got everyone up and ready for school and we were doing great! A wonderful friend from church, Lynn, showed up at the store yesterday and kept Mark Thomas preoccupied while I finished some important printing for a store event later in the month. She was an absolute angel and even took MT to get some lunch when I had a bride and her mother come in without an appointment to order some invitations. Then Lynn said, "let me just go get the other two from school and then bring them back to you at home." Could not have asked for a sweeter friend at the moment.

She then called last night and asked if she could pick up the three younger ones from school and take them to her house. Max has been getting a ride from another mom since he's at a different school. So Lynn got the other three today and I actually had enough time to sit down and pay a few bills online and chat with Max before she brought them home. Lynn and her husband have raised three sons of their own and she's been a wonderful source of encouragement for me and I frequently lean on her for advice when I just feel like I'm at the end of my rope with the children. She's the best.

So Lynn brought them home and we left about 15 minutes later to take the Bens to basketball practice again. I was pulling out of the driveway with my Ben on the way to get the other Ben and I hit a trash can at the end of our driveway. It's just a large, plastic city trash can but it hit my rear window on the suburban just right and I instantly heard it shatter. I just felt the tears welling up within my eyes but didn't want to lose it in front of Ben because I'd done that yesterday with the stitches.

I called my Dad in tears and he did what he always does, just listens and then solves my problems for me. I love you so much Dad. He told me who to call and what questions to ask.

I found someone to fix it for far less than my deductible; which I about died when I heard how much that was when I called our insurance agency. I'm up to my eye balls with medical deductibles right now and I just knew my hole was getting larger and larger. So I called Safelite and they're going to come on Saturday and fix it for a great price. I was willing to wait that long just to have it be less than my deductible.

Next issue, what to do without a car until Saturday? I called another dear friend of mine, Nancy. She and her husband are like parents to me as well. I have lunch with Nancy regularly and she's been a wonderful confidant for me. I treasure our friendship. They have three cars so they were the first people I called and they brought over a car for me to use within 10 minutes.

Even amidst all my crazy emotions I had another friend come over to pick me up to get the Bens and she listened to me sob all the way to the gym. God is good to have provided so many gracious people yesterday and today and even though I'd gladly give back the stitches and the broken glass I'm still thankful for God's provisions in my friends.

Let's really hope I have nothing exciting to post tomorrow.

Day One

2010-01-19T20:10:00.007-06:00

I thought maybe I'd TRY to update the blog daily while Mark is gone so that he doesn't feel like he's missing us too much. I hope and pray that everyday I'm not posting as much news as I'm about to because he may arrive home to find me in a catatonic state.

The morning started off great. I got the kids in bed early knowing I'd have to wake them early to get Max to school on time. I had everything set out to make lunches, clothes picked out and my alarm set. Bear wakes up at 4 am most days so I even had my jammy bottoms and my crocs sitting right by my bed to escort her outside. Mark has been doing this full time so it was about time I shared the duty. She did her "duty" and then went right back into her crate. The alarm went off at 6 am and I hopped in the shower, determined not to yell or lose my mind. We were doing great, really great...everyone was moving along well and nobody complained when I woke them up. I was beginning to think that I could definitely get this done, alone without my hubs.

Within the next half hour all things fell apart. I heard two boys squabbling in the living room and just as I rounded the corner to break it up, and I do mean break it up because these two boys go to blows very quickly lately, I saw Ben shove Mark Thomas' head into the door frame of the dining room. Mad as heck, I heard MT cry but wasn't going to show too much sympathy to do what every good Mom does and say, "I told you two to quit it". Well that worked until I heard Max yell, "MT, you're bleeding" only to have MT remove his hand from his head and find it literally covered in blood. Minor Med here we come.

I dropped Max off at school and then drove to the clinic. We were still in the computer sysytem from our last visit with T in September. And it was much better than our last 8.5 hour trip to the ER and we were out of there with 4 stitches. My only consolation was that Ben had to watch MT squirm on the table in discomfort and hopefully will keep that memory in his mind next time he decides to take a fight to the level he did this morning.

After school, homework and dinner. I dropped Max off at his basketball game. Then picked up Ben's friend, Ben and took them both to their basketball practice. I then went back to Max's game and cheered him on. They played against a local rival and WON. The second time in a row. I think I'm doomed to bad shots this year with my new camera. These gyms are just so poorly lit. But Max did great and we all had a great time cheering him on. Then I drove back to get the Bens and dropped Ben off at his house and then came home with my crew. Whew....

Lets hope tomorrow is a little slower paced than today. And please God let there be no blood shed.

Joy and Sorrow

2010-01-16T18:24:00.009-06:00

So much on my mind tonight. We've had lots of joy over the past few weeks and it's been mixed with some sorrow too. Not sure how eloquently my words will flow tonight. I'm just going to try and keep it real.

Mark and I have for years felt trapped in a burden of debt. It just seems to hang around like an albatross. We knew when we followed God's call to seminary that life would change; and it has so much. In ways more wonderful than we ever could have imagined. We have been to several places we'd never thought we'd go, starting with Iowa. We met friends we'll have for a lifetime there. Struggles were not absent but I'd go back there tomorrow again just to get my Ella Clare. From there we moved to New York, one of the most beautiful states in our union. I long to be back there most days, just soaking up the beauty I'm sure I took for granted while I lived there. Mark has traveled to Israel, South Korea and taken numerous other trips to study and learn more about our Savior and to proclaim the Gospel. The kids have grown immensely in their faith, especially since being here in Beaumont where the children's programming is so strong at our church. And I have been pressed to grow in areas I honestly did not know existed.

But our time in seminary left us with debt and it has seemed to dangle it's ugly face in our lives for years to follow. We're about to embark on the Dave Ramsey program Financial Peace University at our church and I'm hopeful that we can once and for all shake this nasty plague. We long to be able to do more with our money to help others in ways they've helped us. The amount of times people have given selflessly of themselves to support our family over the years are too numerable to even recount here. Both Mark and I are blessed with parents that love us all so much and are always there to lend support when we need it; both spiritually and financially. Those blessings are not lost on us.

Since the children from Uganda stayed in our home nearly 2 and a half years ago my heart has really not been the same. I think of Allan almost daily and wonder what he's doing and pray for his health. I wish so much that he could have been able to come and live with us. I still feel very motherly towards him even though we've not seen or spoken to him since he left the states. I just had this connection with him that made me feel as if he was one of my sons and I hope and pray that someday we might be able to see him again. As Mark, the children and I have watched the news this week and seen the tragedy that's unfolded in Haiti it just brings all those feelings back. I cannot as a mother even begin to imagine the depth of sorrow that exists in Haiti right now. Such an impoverished place in our world and it's been devastated again by a catastrophic event.

I read today that the average person in Haiti exists on around $525 a year. That's less than I make in one week and certainly far less than Mark brings home from his salaried job. It's mind boggling to even begin to pretend how we as Americans could exist on so little. I paid our bills this morning and came up drastically short this month due to an unexpected car repair that totaled much more than Mark and I were prepared to have to spend but it was non-negotiable. After I paid what I could I sat down with Mark to explain what we needed for the rest of the month and I just felt so guilty even being concerned with such frivolity when people not that far away were struggling just to get fresh food and water. Jesus commands us in Matthew 6 not to worry about where our provisions will come from. That he's aware of our needs and just as he tends to the flowers in the field and the birds in the air so he will provide for us.

I want to be free of the worry that money brings. I want to be free to send funds to people who need things so much more than I need a new pair of brown boots right now. I want to be able to continue to provide things for my children the way my parents did for me and my sisters. I want to be able to know that Mark and I can retire one day and spend the rest of our days bringing Glory to our God working side by side in ministry.

These are the thoughts on my mind tonight as I approach the next two weeks ahead of me. I have a birthday coming up, not one I'm excited to celebrate but I'm thankful for another year here on this earth to be with my family and thankful for the blessings God has seen fit to bestow upon me. Mark leaves for Austin on Monday and will be gone for two weeks to continue to work on his doctorate. It's a time he both looks forward to and dreads. It feeds his mind and gets him back in the classroom which he loves and really, who wouldn't love Austin. So much to do there. But it also takes him away from us and that he really dislikes. He'll be calling within a few days wanting to come back home and I'll have to talk him into staying telling him we're just fine without him; which in fact will not be totally accurate. I depend on him in so many ways and it's hard when he's gone but I put on a brave face and am thankful for the cavalry when they arrive. This time it'll be my parents. They'll come for a few days and it'll be great to have them here I know.

Enough of my ramblings and on with some photos...

Alabama beats Texas in the BCS National Championship

We had our own little family party. Didn't want any of those stinky Texas fans in my house to watch the game. I ordered Bama plates, cups and napkins several weeks ago to surprise Mark and the kids and we cooked up our game favorites. We had a great time watching the game with our new family addition, Bear. She wore her crimson and rooted on the Tide to a victory! We knew Alabama was #1 all season long and now the nation knew it too! Way to go boys!!!

Mark Thomas did a bunch of drawing during the

game and plastered the fridge in Bama signs.

Just Bear laying in Ella's cradle.

Won't be long and she won't fit in there.

And today Little Dribblers started for Mark Thomas and Ben. So much fun to see them both trying out a new sport. They did great! Both of their teams won and they each contributed to the point tally. We won't have many shots to share from these upcoming games though. The lighting was terrible in both gyms and I really only got a few good shots at Ben's game because a friend of mine let me borrow his VERY expensive flash. A purchase I won't be making any time soon. MT is #4 and Ben is #12. Max has played basketball at St. Anne's this year too. He's learned a lot but is still a baseball lover at heart. Sign ups for baseball are next weekend so we'll be back at the ball fields before we know it.

What happens in our house on a rainy day. I can't actually remain in the room because the disorder makes me a little batty. Mark is being a great Dad right now and helping to clean it all up. Ella printed out passes to allow entrance into her fort and a sign that said she was the front desk clerk.

Bear sacked out on the chair in the living room.

This could be a problem when she's much

bigger but for now it sure is cute.

Sheesh, you're probably asleep by now just like Bear after reading all my ramblings.

Trip to San Angelo and Enchanted Rock

2010-01-02T11:19:00.011-06:00

Mark Thomas getting silly before we even leave the cul-de-sac.

Ben playing cowboy in my Uncle Robbie's hat.

Ella ready to nap in her beauty mask.

She wears this thing all the time!

We stopped in Fredericksburg on our way to San Angelo. It's a beautiful little town that I can't wait to revisit with Mark sans children and hopefully some cash in my wallet. We stopped and walked around downtown and this quaint little park.

Ella found her name on a brick in the park.

Ben after climbing up a little embankment.

My T Tom.

Ella Clare

We also stopped at Enchanted Rock on our way home from San Angelo. Mark has restarted a local boy scout troop at our church and he had wanted to plan a trip here in January so the boys could earn their merit badge for rock climbing. Of course it was essential as a Scout Master to survey the local surroundings first! The boys had a great time climbing but Ella and I didn't have our climbing attire on so we just enjoyed the scenery.

Mark and I combined our Christmas money this year from our parents and splurged on a new camera. It's so great and I've already enjoyed the ability to shoot things I simply could not with my little point and shoot digital camera. I will not be starting my own photography business as it seems so many people are these days but I certainly could with the quality of photos the camera takes. I am anxious to take it to all the baseball games and to the pool when swim season starts to capture the kids in all their action.

But as you can see from below, my telephoto lens allows me to shoot things that are crazy far away. The boys climbed to the top of the easiest portion to scale and within 45 minutes went from bottom to top and back down again. This was my first time to use the lens and I was shocked at how far away I could still make out my 4 boys at the top. Enchanted Rock is 425 feet and Ella and I felt so far away from them but with this lens we could clearly see where they were in their descent. Can you see them??

This was their first litle climb along the journey to the top.

Racing to see who could get their first.

Ben is in the lead so far.

Yep, he got there first. He's been called our little monkey

since he was a toddler. Climbs everything.

They all made it!!

Ok, I know most of you are blown away that I've posted two days in a row since my track record had become so poor. I'm not promising posts everyday but I'd sure be thrilled to hit once a week. Especially with all the photos we've been taking lately with our fancy new camera.

New Year, New Rules

2010-01-01T18:16:00.005-06:00

Our Sweet Little Bear

The boys are in love!

Crimson bed

Sound asleep, the kids wear her out.

My cousin, Cymber's wedding. Ella, Reese and Molly were flower girls and Macie was an acolyte.

Mark was the officiating minister at Cymber and Kyle's wedding and did a GREAT job!

Handsome crew of ours

I sincerely doubt I have anyone that checks in on our blog anymore. It's been since September that I've added anything. I really cannot believe that. I say it all the time to Mark, "I don't know where the time goes." I honestly do not feel like I have time to do much of anything that doesn't revolve around the kids and while that is usually quite fulfilling, the days just seem to blend one right into the other.

So in this New Year that begins today, I hope to update our blog much more frequently and have the ability to document our lives and those of our children. They have changed a ton since September.

Let's see since September, we've had a few things happen in our household. Max started school at Marshall and after the first week we decided to move him to St. Anne's Catholic School. It was the right decision and we're thrilled they had an opening for him. He did not feel such a huge pang of anxiety because he knew lots of kids there already from playing in the local baseball league and swimming. He fit in right away and has done really well in the classroom too.

October we played baseball a lot! Having the ability to play Fall ball here is just so much fun for the whole family. Since we had three boys playing we pretty much lived out at the ball fields. Max moved up to the junior field this Fall so we all adjusted to that. It's a major league field except for the distance to the home run fence. Max pitched a few times and got a few nice hits but as usual he wasn't pleased with his performance. Ever the perfectionist he wanted to do better. We continued to emphasize the adjustment to the new field and hopefully some of what we said sunk in.

Ben learned a lot on the field this fall too. He stepped in as a relief pitcher and his little face just lit up when he came through in the clinch. He was put in the GT class this year at school and has surpassed all of our expectations. We knew he was exceptionally bright, of course, but he does what he wants to do in his own time so we didn't know how he'd adjust to the pace. Well on his last report card he had all A's and one B. He's also gotten pretty preoccupied with his appearance as of late if you know what I mean. We try to be patient and encourage his attention to detail but when we're trying to get out the door it can often pose a problem. He's a little charmer though.

Mark Thomas had an excellent season on the ball field. Their team was undefeated and he pitched as well. Having three sons on the mound is not something I really would have wanted especially with the intensity of our local league but it can be really thrilling when there's an awesome victory. So we pray for those kinds of games. His hand healed up just great and we're now paying the bills.

Short little side note there just because it blows my mind. We spent 8 hours in the ER that night and never, I repeat NEVER saw a physician. We required no other supplies except for the small little package they opened at the time of suturing and one little package of gauze and some tape. Well the bills finally arrived a few weeks ago and the total for seven little stitches came to $2545!!!! We had not yet met our deductible for the year because thankfully we have really healthy children and we really don't ever go to the doctor so we're paying $765 in addition to the $100 I paid in the ER that night. I will not get into an insurance discussion here but needless to say my thoughts on insurance are the way we're billed for things continues to be an issue of discussion in our own home.

Ok, back to MT. He's still a pistol and if anyone is reading this blog anymore we'd appreciate prayers for him. We just want to continue to emphasize all the wonderful things we see in him and know that God has such great things in store for his future; so we try to focus on the positive. He can just downright rule the roost at times and that's not always a good thing.

Ella has totally adjusted to the classroom. After her first six weeks we had a conference with her teacher and she was supposed to be reading around 50 words a minute by the end of the school year I believe and she was already reading nearly 80 words a minute. Her teacher told us she scored nearly a 100% on all her subjects and then laughed and looked at me and said, "you know, she really could be doing better." She got an American Girl doll for Christmas last week and is just head over heels for "Bella". Mark thought she'd like it but not near as much as I knew she would. She kept saying all day on Christmas, "I just never knew I'd love her so much." Ever the girl we're thankful for her presence in a house full of boys!

And lastly our new addition. Bear. The boys have been wanting a dog for months since we had to find a new home for Shiloh. I had been the lone hold out. I began looking online months ago but still just couldn't bring myself to give in to their request. So I finally settled on a boxer and found a local litter on a website I had looked at and we went to pick up our new little pup yesterday. She's just precious! We decided to name her Bear in honor of Alabama's BCS appearance this year. I had wanted to name her Bama but Mark said no so I told him it had to be Bear then. After the famed Bear Bryant of course. We'll be very excited to have her in attendance next week when Alabama kicks the butts of the Longhorns. Nothing more to say there....enough said.

Above are pics from the last few months. Enjoy and please check back again. I promise to update more often.

A Mixture of Things

2009-09-04T20:37:00.007-05:00

Well, life around our house is just never dull. With 4 children how can it be? While most of the time we revel in the fact that there is always something going on; occasionally I dream and drift off to a place where no one would call my name, where I'd have no laundry to do or a kitchen to clean or paperwork to fill out or bills to pay. Ahhh, wouldn't that be heavenly? But quickly I'm pulled back and life is just that.... life!

School started well or at least we thought it was going to start well. Turns out our oldest son, Max was in for a big change. Seventh grade was not shaping up to a great start at the public middle school and it became very apparent very quickly. Like the first day! We tried to make it work for three more days before looking at other options and thankfully one quickly presented itself. Max switched schools and started at a local Catholic private school the next week. He has been enjoying the new school and told us this week that he really didn't feel like he had changed schools since he already knew so many kids from baseball. He was already in uniforms so that wasn't a new adjustment, just a little different in selection and he is remaining in percussion and honors classes. Ella is the only one who will allow me to photograph her on school premises anymore.

Mark is the temporary Scout Master of the Troop he restarted at our church and they recently took another camping trip. They go camping about once a month and are really enjoying seeing different parts of the area. They took a 5 mile hike last weekend and found several of these beautiful spiders along the route. At one point Max walked through a web and several of his buds quickly realized that the spider had landed on his head. His head! Needless to say, Max screamed and threw his ball cap off and his trusty pal, Benji proceeded to stomp the life from the spider. While they may not have adhered to scout rules of preserving wild life I'm pretty sure I would have done the same thing.

Before the kids started school Ella got a special treat. Our favorite babysitter, Kristin, asked Ella to spend the night with her before she went back to college. She is starting her second year at the University of Texas. Last year when she went away for the first time Ella just cried and cried. She could not understand why Kristin had to go to college. Kristin took her to Chuck-E-Cheese and they had a great time!

And last but not least what would life be like without a trip to the ER? Mark Thomas was running home from a friend's house on Wednesday and slipped and fell, cutting his hand on something in the road. I could tell when he came running in the house that he was panicked. He had surgery three times as an infant so his pain tolerance is very high and for him to really cry about something tells us immediately, something is not good. So as soon as I saw him and saw the blood on his t-shirt I rushed him to the kitchen sink and quickly saw way more of his flesh than I would have liked and we jumped in the truck and headed to the hospital. We were there from 7:30 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. Yes, that's right. 8.5 hours!!! Seven stitches later and we were headed home. The two of us slept until 1:30 that afternoon and I spent the rest of the day feeling like I had been hit by a truck. I am way too old to stay up that late.

Challenge

2009-08-22T20:24:00.003-05:00

The kids found out who they'd have for teachers yesterday and it had our house buzzing. It's fun now that the kids know more people and teachers and by the end of the year they all knew who they wanted for this year!

We've had a full summer, trips to Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Pennsylvania, and smaller excursions to our beach and other local favorites; but now it's time to get ready for school again. Ella found out that she has Miss McBride, a mega favorite in our house. MT had her when he was in first grade and it was so funny when we went to see her class room yesterday and she saw MT again. He is only about 6-8 inches shorter than her and she looked right at him and said, "you are just not allowed to get taller than me" and hugged him. Just wait until Miss McBride sees how well Ella can read. Chapter books all summer long!

Mark Thomas has a new teacher, Mrs. Castle. The verdict is still out but we're praying it's a good match. MT is so flexible it would take a complete tyrant for him to get flustered so let's just pray she can handle his enthusiastic zest for life!

And drum roll please....Benjamin was put in a CHALLENGE class! We were so excited and proud of him! I had heard a little bird tell me earlier in the day that her sister who is a teacher saw Ben's name on the challenge filler list but I quickly told her, that can't be. Well, it sure can. When Mark took the kids to see the list posted at the school there was Ben's name in Mrs. Johnson's class! You could see it on his face when we went last night to see her that he was smiling inside. What a huge accomplishment for our little Benji who struggled and really still continues to learn differently. When his teacher from third grade saw him yesterday she went straight up to him and told him how proud she was of him. She looked right at me and said, "he is ready for this. He is so gifted."

Ben continues to excel and just takes things at his own pace. From the time he was super little to now, he does things when he wants to. We thought he was color blind for years because he would never tell us his colors correctly but he knew them, just wanted to freak his parents out. In first grade we thought we'd have to hold him back because he wasn't learning to read as quickly as the other students but now we can hardly get him to put books down. Trying to get him to do chores, come on, that's still a struggle but see him walking around the house with one of his many notebooks and sneak a peak at a story he's writing and you'll be blown away by his detail and plot. He is Ben and that is fine by us. Most of the time, but I'm just being honest now. I would like him to do his chores more willingly but we're continuing to work on that.

We're thrilled that Mrs. Johnson will be shaping him this year before he goes onto Middle School next year. She is a wonderful teacher and neighbor I might add too. She and her family happen to live right across the street from us. Definitely helps out when there are homework questions. Max would walk over there from time to time when he was in fifth grade. She told me with confidence that Ben was chosen to be in that class. Based on his IQ scores and his other skill assessments. God is good, to provide this boost of encouragement for a little boy who compares himself way too much to his older brother. Look out fifth grade, here comes Ben Keffer!

Grief

2009-08-21T20:33:00.002-05:00

Grief. It's something that I know very little about personally and yet it seems to surround so many people I either love or care about and even some who I have never seen and probably never will. Tracy is a friend of Mark's and mine from college at the University of Alabama. The pictures below are of her, her children and her husband, Brian who passed away on Monday after fighting cancer for several months.

Our lives are so short and we never know what might be around the corner. An accident that happens within seconds, an illness that we never saw coming or the loss of a child that shakes the very foundation of who we are and what we believe in. Another blog I follow is of a family that lost their newborn baby daughter this past week. She lived only a few days and the strength and courage I've read in their words brings me to my knees.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Romans 8:26

I have heard this scripture quoted many times over the last few years and I clearly remember the first time someone I very much admire quoted it. The Rev. Dr. Bill Harter, spoke these words at a funeral he presided over that I attended nearly 15 years ago. I remember coming home and telling Mark that I had never heard the passage before and how it so moved me to know that our Holy Spirit would interceed on our behalf when we didn't even know what to pray for. And not just interceed but with "groans that words cannot express", the pain, the agony that truly words cannot even begin to convey. Those are the emotions that our Holy Spirit communicates to our Father for us.

This scripture was posted on the Rowe's website and I have said it so many times in my head this week as I prayed for Tracy, Hailey, Alex and Skyla. Please commit them to your prayers, through the coming days and months to come. They will need support to get through this journey, without a husband and a father. When I think of our family and the strength we draw from Mark I cannot even begin to phathom what our lives would be like without him.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Romans 8:26

Pray for Kate

2009-07-22T18:26:00.004-05:00

Prayer. It can often seem like such a small thing, that is until you see it unfold a miracle right before your very eyes. I did not even know what a blog was two years ago but since moving to Texas I discovered several of my friends had blogs and I loved checking in on their precious families. I started this blog shortly after we moved to update people on our family of 6 and to chronicle our desire to have Allan move to the states and join our family. Sadly that did not come to fruition despite countless prayers but that does NOT change my perception of prayer.

I have become entrenched in the lives of many women across the country who I have never met and more than likely won't ever meet but I count it a privilege to be able to pray for them and lift them up as they struggle with things I simply cannot imagine. The blogging world is one big web and once you're snagged you're caught. I love checking in periodically and seeing how God is moving in families across the country.

So for the first time I want to post a link to a website dedicated to the struggle of one little girl, Kate McRae. She and her family live in Phoenix, Arizona and she has recently been diagnosed with a very serious malignant brain tumor. Please take some time to visit her site and lift this family up in prayer. God is listening and wants to hear our petitions.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/mcraekate

I have been wanting to write about so many things on this blog lately and my words just don't seem to come as easily as they often do. My heart yearns for things I do not fully understand and I hope to share more of that later. But for now, know that prayer is powerful. Prayer ties us to each other, fellow believers, and non-believers. What more of a powerful testimony can you have than to let a non-believer know that you've been praying for something they can tangibly see in their own lives? Our God is a powerful God and he still performs miracles! Please pray for little Kate.

July

2009-07-06T19:27:00.004-05:00

Imagine my surprise today when I went to download some pictures and discovered that someone had taken their own photos. It seems Ella decided to host her own private photo shoot.

Bringing the troops around the parking lot.

Max and Cody preparing to lead the parade at church. They sounded so awesome!!

Ben with Whiskers. They missed each other so much when Ben went to camp.

Our bounty after a few swim meets! All four kids are swimming. We had a few white ribbons but what the heck I can photograph only the red and blue if I want to. The Keffer 4 rock in the water!!

Mark getting ready to take the boys to camp.

Second year campers! They're pros now.

Austin

2009-06-29T19:55:00.006-05:00

We have been back over a week already but we had the best time! Max enjoyed swim camp, got a little homesick but it made his Momma happy to know that he still needed her. So he and I texted often at night. He's had his own cell phone for months now and I know sometimes it can be a pain but the texting is something I really enjoy. It's a form of communication with him I am thankful for and I know he texts me things that he often would not tell me in person.

My Dad arranged for us to get a private tour of the capitol with some of his work associates and they were so generous. They spent so much time with us showing us around and we even got to sit in our own State Senator's chair, Tommy Williams. The kids loved all the artifacts and I can honestly say there is not another capitol in the country that is as proud as ours. Every inch was covered in stars, after all we are the Lone Star state.

Mark asked for private lodging during his stay at seminary and while it was nice and private the bed cracked me up. Mark is 6'6" so his tiny little twin bed just did not cut it. I suggested he move the other twin bed horizontally at the foot of his bed but he said he was used to his feet hanging off. Such a trooper, my giant.

The kids and I stayed in the DoubleTree suites downtown. It was FREE because of some air mileage I had converted to Hilton points in case anyone is interested! The pool was fabulous. It was outdoors and the cities high rise buildings were all around us. The kids and I ate the breakfast buffet one morning and we certainly took the return as often you'd like to heart, clearing out the bacon faster than the server could replace it.

I took the kids to the BlueBell Creameries in Brenham on the way to Austin and we had a yummy time. We got to see how they make the ice-cream and learned all about the process. Did you know that it takes the milk of 10,000 cows to produce one days worth of ice cream in the factory? We all chose our favorites scoops at the end of the tour and paid homage to my father, a loyal Blue Bell consumer for years!

So Austin, we will return hopefully soon to visit more of your local gems.

Max leaves for UT Swim Camp

2009-06-14T16:55:00.002-05:00

We always pray as a family before anyone leaves to go on a trip so we were all outside ready to pray and MT ran out with his Darth Vader mask on and said, "Let's join hands." So we did. Keffer craziness with boys in boxers and masks. God has to love it.

Ella bought this cute little orange at the church yard sale on Friday and decided to send it with Mark. He left today for his two weeks in Austin to continue working on his doctorate. She said, "Like the AT&T commercial, you can take pictures with him Daddy."

My oldest headed off to the big city of Austin for swim camp. There will be 9 Olympians there and the Olympic head coach is running the camp.

A good friend posted on my facebook page that he was sad Max was going to a college other than Bama. So I had to reassure him that Max left with his Bama hat on. No divided loyalties in our house. He was born in Alabama and nothing would thrill us more than for him to head to Tide country. We're just going to have to beef up their swim program!

Swim Season Begins

2009-06-14T16:33:00.005-05:00

We had our first swim meet of the season yesterday. It was typical South East Texas heat, so we were covered in sun screen and sweating up a storm but we all had fun. This year all 4 kids are swimming. Ella decided if she was always going to be at the pool she might as well be in the pool and we were so excited to see her first race. She swam the freestyle relay and was the last swimmer. Our team was behind a little when she dove in but she quickly caught up and passed the other swimmers. When she got out she said, "I beat that boy." She sure did! She also swam the 25 freestyle and the 25 backstroke.

The other boys are professionals now so they were pumped to start. Mark helped run the computers and I am now the volunteer coordinator so it's a full fledged family event. We're excited for a super fun season!

May Madness

2009-05-30T18:05:00.005-05:00

School is only one week from being out! How on earth did that happen so fast? I will have a first, third, fifth and seventh grader next year. The years just keep sailing by. I've had an increasingly difficult time keeping up with all 4 of the kiddos this year. Now that they're all in school and all have many end of school activities, it's just a full time job keeping up with all of them. Mark and I have tried to split up to cover it all and it's sad for us not to both be able to be at everything together but as the kids get older there are more and more things that tend to overlap. So Ella's class took a trip to the Houston zoo, which I went on, Mark Thomas's class went to the movie theatre, Ben's class went to the Natural History Museum also in Houston, which Mark went on and Max's trip unfortunately was canceled due to the swine flu but he's had other rewards for being such a great student at Marshall that not all kids were able to participate in so he's ok. Seems to have out grown that whole field trip thing.

I drove to Houston with a girl friend so we could get home earlier to head to Dallas for Memorial Day weekend. Our attempt to leave early was totally foiled by the road crew working on the highway so we sat in traffic for over an hour. I had been in NYC for work that same week for two days and was so tired from traveling but my sisters conned me into coming up to the Big D. So at 6:00 p.m. after Ella and I finally got home from Houston I took all 4 of the kids up to Dallas and we had a great time hanging out with my parents, sisters and their crews.

And with all the end of school parties we've also thrown in a few birthday and slumber parties. Ben had two of his buddies spend the night last night. Ella went to a birthday party at the Queen B this morning and MT is at a birthday party right now from 2-9. When Matthew's mom called to invite MT and told me the time, and then asked if MT could come, I felt like shouting a resounding YES. Such quietness having one gone for that length of time. Is that bad? Probably, but hey, I'm just keeping it real. Ella had a fabulous time. Flash backs to the Bippety Boppety Boutique at Disney World. She's got enough glitter on her to shine in the dark. When one of the boys that stayed with Ben had his mom come to pick him up she saw Ella and said, "I'll never get to do that. I'll just have to take myself someday." She has three boys!

Memorial Day Weekend Message

2009-05-25T15:24:00.002-05:00

Hope you enjoy this Memorial Day Weekend sermon, based on the "Macedonian Cry" that Paul heard, as recorded in Acts 16:1-12.
The sermon, of course, is dedicated to the glory of God, in loving memory of Robbie D. "Pop" Langston.

Mr. Q and Miss U

2009-05-10T20:08:00.006-05:00

Ella had a big event at school this last week. Mr. Q asked Miss U to marry him and the class had a big wedding to celebrate. Never in all three years of kindergarten with the boys did we have something so fun to attend. Mark did the honors today because I'll be going with Ella to the zoo next week. Ella was asked to wear church clothes the day of the wedding and that morning she told me, "Morgan said she doesn't have any church clothes. How come she doesn't have church clothes?" And I said, "well some people don't go to church every Sunday like we do." She looked at me like I was totally nuts.

Mark said Mrs. Jones did a great job officiating and wrote into the vows that Miss Q make "Quaker oatmeal every day" and that Mr. Q "hunt quail reguarly". There was a bridal procession and Ella was asked to be Miss U's attendant. They had a wedding cake tiered with little Debbie's zebra cakes and even danced afterwards.

Ella also brought me breakfast in bed this morning for Mother's Day. It's heavenly having the kids be older. They each get up and make their own breakfast on Saturdays and even close my door on their way down the hallway. I was sound asleep at 7:30 and Ella walked in and said, "Happy Mother's day, Momma. I brought you cereal, your favorite with cranberries." I really didn't want to wake up yet but the gesture was precious so I climbed out of bed, put pajama bottoms on and walked into the kitchen to have cereal with my daughter. I'll post more later about the things the other kids did.

After church today though, I was on the computer in the laundry room and Ella came in to color a picture. She laid her head down and was talking to me and within a few minutes she was totally quiet. I looked down and she had totally fallen asleep on the laundry room floor! I often feel like sleeping in the laundry room because it's a job that never ends but this was just too much. Adorable!

Max and Mowing

2009-05-10T19:52:00.003-05:00

You have to love having boys that like to mow! Max has enjoyed mowing the lawn since we lived in NY and would actually get upset when he got off the bus if he could tell that we had mowed while he was at school. Our yard was much larger there so our yard here is easier for him to accomplish solo. Ben has actually started mowing too with assistance from Mark so this weekend the competition was on. Max heard Ben say that he wanted to mow so he quickly went out to the shed and got the lawn mower, started it up and mowed the front lawn all by himself. He's got a lead on Ben because as of yet the initial prep work is something Ben cannot do alone. The sibling rivalry never ends around here.

Bragging Mom

2009-05-10T19:29:00.004-05:00

Since we've moved to Texas there is a wonderful church camp not far from where we live and last summer the three boys were able to attend because of scholarship money the camp has been graciously endowed. The boys have to ask someone for a reference and this year Ben and MT asked their teachers. I have to brag a minute and post what their teachers wrote because these forms are obviously mailed to the camp and I wanted to keep a record of what was written about each of them. The references totally made me cry. So here we go...

"Benjamin Keffer is a a fourth grade student in my classroom and he exhibits tremendous leadership qualities. I can attest that he is a young man with a promising future who would be an asset to your program. Ben stands out among his peers as he seeks opportunities to help others and regularly offers encouragement to a visually impaired classmate. He is a kind and caring person who reflects Christian values in the classroom and on the playground. He is also active in Boy Scouts and frequently responds to situations in honorable ways. I heartily urge without reservation that you offer him any financial support available, as he is deserving of any help. Your program will be rewarded for assisting this young man."

"Mark Thomas Keffer is a second grade student in my class. He has shown outstanding leadership traits and good citizenship. He is kind and considerate to others. Mark Thomas is always ready to assist others when needed. He displays a great attitude and is a positive influence on his classmates. Mark Thomas is an asset to our classroom. He is extremely bright and inquisitive and excels in all areas."

Asking for assistance can be humbling at times but this has been a wonderful exercise for our family and frankly the children would not be able to attend such a wonderful camp without the assistance. So we are so thankful for those individuals that support the camp with their donations.

Max will not be attending church camp this summer because he's going to a swim camp at the University of Texas for a week. It will be run by the US Olympic head coach and there will be 8 Olympians there as well. We are so excited for this experience! Each of the boys have skill in the pool but Max is more developed now in his techniques are they're excellent so we're anxious to see him have a wonderful swim season this year.

Some Pivacy Please

2009-04-14T22:43:00.002-05:00

For the past couple of years whenever Ella was using the restroom and someone would walk in she'd say, "some pivacy please" and I loved it. She now inserts r's properly into her words and that sweet saying is gone but in honor of it we're taking our blog private. It's become apparent to me lately that we've had some activity on the blog that concerns me. So if you're a regular reader and I know you, email me and let me know that you'd like to continue popping in from time to time. If you're a regular reader and I don't know you, well we'll just have to see what happens. Our 4 children are the most important things in the world to us so this isn't meant to make things complicated, just give us "pivacy" in a busy blogging world.

Lost Time

2009-04-12T14:26:00.002-05:00

Life just keeps sailing on by and my time on the blog has been zero to say the least. I know I felt as a mom to young ones several years ago that our lives were so busy and I wondered how I'd get it all done but now it's just downright nuts. We're never at home and with with the three boys playing baseball we're gone all the time. Add homework, Max's budding life as a pre-teen and church activities too, we're swamped. Life is full but very busy. So the long list of photos below summarizes some of the last month and a half.

Mark took a a trip to Augusta, Georgia to see the practice round at the Master's with his parents and only brother. They had a great time. Mark came home with a renewed desire to have the best lawn on the block so we've been out in the yard a lot this weekend. Of course it helps that I have a brother in law that works for Scott's lawn products and we get awesome freebies.

Max was confirmed on Palm Sunday and my parents were able to make the trip down to celebrate with us. It was a very special service seeing Max publically profess his beliefs. He wrote an excellent faith statement and we were so proud. All the confirmands lit small votives and Max was the last one to light his and it just wouldn't light. He finally got it to work and Pastor Harland commented on how tough it was but then as he began to pray the candle went out. I was so concerned knowing Max would be aware of it but at the end of the prayer it came to life again. Mark closed the service and said he was praying during Harland's prayer that the candle would burn brightly and it did! Max will most certainly burn brightly in the world. It's our prayer all the time as he leaves our house and enters his big world of middle school.

Baseball has been so fun this season. Max is in his last year of Majors and we prayed so hard that he'd have a coach that was encouraging, instructional and would mentor him to improve his game. We got all that and more. Coach Morrow loves the game as much as Max and he's been having a great season. His stats so far are great and we'll post them all at the end of the season. I thought I was stressed enough with one pitcher in the family but it looks like we could have two more coming right behind Max. Ben was put in as a relief pitcher two weeks ago with two boys on base and the team was attempting to make a come back. Ben struck out three boys in a row and was given the game ball that night. His face when he came home to tell me, I had a migraine that night, so Mark was thankfully on hand to catch the glory, was just priceless. And Mark Thomas is one of only three kids on his team that can throw the ball across the plate. So he's a budding star as well. He looks so cute on the mound and is also a killer short stop making excellent throws to first base tagging out more runners than I can count so far this season.

Let's see now, little Miss Ella Bella. She wanted to buy chopsticks a few weeks ago at HEB and all the kids use them regularly. Cracks me up but hey, if they eat more on their plate then I'm all for it. I've bought her a few new dresses for spring and she's had fun getting all dressed up. She managed to rob her grandmother of some jewelry while home on spring break so one pic has her with her pearls. All the kids went to Mount Vernon on their trip and had a ball. Ella told me when she got home that they saw Martha Washington's dress, necklace and hat but she immediately said, "well her dress was a reproduction but her necklace was real." Someone was listening to the docent.

And lastly, little Whiskers. One little photo of the cat that has come so far from her humble beginnings. She was left dumped in a trash can nearly a year ago at the YMCA and now she roams the house with a sense of pretentiousness. She's super sweet and will purr at just about anyone or anything and lately she's taken to napping in the front dining room window in a hand painted southern living at home bowl.

We're crazy busy but happy, healthy and thankful for all that the Lord has given to us. Especially on this Easter Sunday. Ever mindful of our imperfections and the grace God bestowed upon us to send his son to give his life for ours.

Pet Rocks and Middle School

2009-03-04T18:46:00.002-06:00

There's just never enough time in the day to post to our blog it seems lately so this will be brief. Baseball season has started so we're home even less but we're all ready for the big capping ceremony and for the season to get underway. Three boys in different leagues, practices each at least twice a week and you can tell why I'm never at home. Maybe I should take my laptop to the fields and post from there.

Anyway, short, funny story. Max is now in 6th grade at the middle school and he's a great student, in all honors classes. The work is not for the faint of heart though. I can't even help him with his math anymore. Thank God Mark is gifted in the subject. He gets in my car most days when I pick him up and tells me how bored he's been all day. Not sure if things are not challenging enough or if he's just giving me a line. So earlier in the week Ella is wandering around the front yard looking for a rock. She asks her older brother to help her find one and he is quite puzzled at the request and asks her why on earth she needs to find a rock.

She quickly tells him that she'll be painting it at school the next day because they're all making pet rocks in class. Max turns and looks right at me and says, "I want to go back to kindergarten."

Boys will be Boys

2009-02-08T18:06:00.002-06:00

I have known for years and years that boys are different than girls. From the very beginning when we had one and then added two more our lives have been full of noise, dirt and squabbles. When Ella finally made her debut I was completely shocked at how different they really are. So needless to say I could write about story after story but will let only detail this one for the day.

We've seen a lot of things break through the years but since we've lived in this house the boys have broken three panes of glass in different windows and if you know me well enough you'll know that my house is my sanctuary and I take great pride in keeping it clean and having it look nice. So broken window panes don't exactly fall under either of those categories. My husband, whom I love dearly, is not the most handy dandy of men. So he's just covered them up with plastic and duct tape. Oh so lovely. I cringe every time I look at them because they look awful and if I knew how to fix them believe me I would. I also know that I could call a glass company but money is never in abundance around here so it wasn't high on the priority list.

Well yesterday Ben and MT came running home while I was out front working in my flower beds and they had these two rather large dogs running right behind them. Ben said they were up in the road several blocks down and they didn't want them to get hurt so they just brought them home with them. "Oh no you don't" I said, "let them go and they'll find their home." Being the ever obedient child, Ben took the dogs and put them in our back yard and then got the phone to call the owners listed on one of their tags. I could hear him say, "Do you have two golden retrievers?" and then he said, "We have them at our house." I said let me talk to them, thinking that they'd think they'd been kidnapped since Ben gave no other details. So I told the man where we lived and he promptly sent someone over to get them.

When the owner's fiance came over she was so glad the boys had found the dogs and thanked them for being so kind. She then looked at me and said, "my fiance owns a glass company and he told me to tell you to call him if you needed any glass work done and we'd do it for free." Did you hear that FREE!!! So obviously, I then looked at the boys after the nice woman drove away and thanked them for doing such a kind deed. Ben looked at me and said, "you're only happy now because we can get our windows fixed."

Lots of updates

2009-01-25T17:44:00.005-06:00

Mardi Gras Girl! Ella wasn't able to go to a birthday party for a friend in her class but his brother came to Ben's party and gave her these party favors. She told me she was Mardi Gras girl and if she zapped her hands at me she could throw me around the room. I suggested she zap her hands and make the house be clean.

Max and MT with one of the toys he got from his party. Nerf guns with vests to mark their targets.

Because Mark Thomas's birthday is on December 1st, putting a party together for him is always so difficult for me. The time of year is just so busy for our family so this year we decided to do a combined party with Ben, since his birthday is at the end of January. The store I work at owns the only skating rink in town so we booked a private party for two hours and they each invited several friends. They had a great time and I'm thinking it was one of the easiest parties I've ever put together. So maybe this will become a yearly event.

The boys took this picture of Whiskers and thought it was so hilarious that her eyes were green. They laughed and laughed, to the point of it not being funny to the mom in the house.

Mark brought home some interesting gifts for the kids this time. He visited a store where he could purchase custom made scrubs and lotions so Ellas was dying to try hers out. Quite the beauty huh?

While Mark was gone working on his doctorate we had many eventful days. I was sick the first week he was gone. So thankful that I had taken a week of vacation from work because all I did was lay on the couch. The second week went better but it was pretty crazy getting all 4 kids out the door each morning and getting everything done in the evening. One evening I went to get into the program on my computer where I keep all my financial info and realized that the file wouldn't open. I spent almost an hour online with a Quicken rep only to discover that my files had somehow been corrupted so all of my data was lost. I was nearly in tears. I got up from the computer and turned the corner only to discover that while I was lamenting over the programing error, Max had made dinner for everyone. He can really be such a help when he wants to.

Ella went to a Build a Bear party two weeks ago and came home with "Mini Ben". Out of all the girly things she could have chosen, she picked a dog and dressed him up like a boy scout and named him after her brother. She even had Mini-Ben put on his birth certificate. When I asked the other two boys how they felt about not having him named after them they looked at me and said, "we don't care." Such kindness in their hearts.

Mark went to his first youth lock in and slept the better part of the next day on the couch. Isn't he so cute?

Over half way there

2009-01-11T08:11:00.002-06:00

Well we're over half way into our tour at home without Dad. Mark left last week for his two week stint in Austin to work on his doctorate. He goes for two weeks in January and two weeks in June. I took the first week off from work just to be able to relax a little while the kids were at school. My relaxing turned into laying on the couch almost every day because I had a cold that just now seems to be on it's way out. I watched several movies on tv and napped more than I have in years so I guess I can't complain.

I know Mark feels like we can get along without him just fine, but that's simply not true. We miss him terribly. The kids ask me every day, "how many more days until Dad gets home?" and when people ask them where their dad is, the little ones will say, "he's at pastor school." I can't even begin to list all the ways I miss him. I always take on new appreciation for single parents with multiple kids. I really do not know how they do it. Actually, I do, but not long term and without a supportive spouse that always returns home. Hurry home Mark. We'll all be here waiting for you!

Cancer Sucks

2009-01-06T19:32:00.003-06:00

It seems like when I was younger I heard about cancer every now and then. Maybe someone you knew, knew someone suffering with a horrible form but now it seems like cancer is everywhere and affects the least likely people at the youngest of ages. This week someone I went to high school with passed away at the young age of 31. Only married 4 years and full of life. She fought for 10 hard months but lost the battle. We ran in similar circles and played on the tennis team together but did not know each other that well. I've kept up with her journal for the last few months and was so impressed with her bravery and strength. Please pray for her family as they remember her tomorrow at her funeral and pray for strength and courage to get through the coming days. Her name was Megan.

I also received an email from my mother in law this morning that my sister in law's mother was going in for a cat scan today for a mass that was found on one of her lungs. The scan may not be that clear because the dye burst one of her veins today, very painful I was told, and they're not yet sure if they'll get a clear enough image to give them a diagnosis. Prayers that the scan is clear enough to read and that the news is positive would be greatly appreciated.

As Megan said several times, "Cancer Sucks." May you rest peacefully on this new journey.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-31T17:48:00.007-06:00

I have no clue what order all these pictures are in so I'm not going to bother putting captions between all of them. We celebrated Christmas Eve here in town since Mark obviously has to be at both services. The first service was a family service and it was really moving. Santa made a special appearance while the kids were at the chancel and he bowed in front of the manger, took his hat off and prayed silently. Then they sang "Away in a Manger" and I couldn't help but tear up. We came home to open our gifts since we were traveling early the next morning. Ben and Ella were the most dressed up for the service, warranting a photo with their handsome father. Ben was given a suit a few months ago and has begged to wear it so he put his ensemble together. The kid, that I can hardly get to brush his teeth, clip his nails or even take a shower, was dressed to the nines. Go figure.

We have over the past few years changed the way we celebrate with gift giving and it continues to be modified. I spoke to a dear friend of mine from college, the week before Christmas and she and her husband and 5 boys celebrate the holidays a little differently as well and I hope next year to incorporate some of their ideas too. The kids ask for one big item, and then we purchase two to three other small things for them. Unfortunately, the older the boys gets, that ONE item often costs way more than I'd like it to but we start to shop as early as we can. Max got the IPOD touch, Ben got a PSP, MT got a new bike, and Ella got Jungle in my Pocket. They also got a large gift that Mark has been working hard on all week, and finally finished assembling today, the basketball hoop. It's in ground with a 54" inch backboard. Thanks Beegee, the kids along with all the neighborhood kids, love it! Santa only brings what goes in their stockings in an attempt to not focus too much on him as much as we do the birth of our Saviour.

We traveled to Dallas Christmas morning and had a wonderful weekend with my family. Beegee was there along with my aunt, uncle, cousin and her new "friend" and we really enjoyed each other's company. The kids learned a new domino game and quickly caught on, called Chicken Foot. We shopped, ate, went to a movie, ate some more and sat around talking. It's always great to go home.

Hard to believe 2008 is almost over. We're staying home tonight, rented a few flicks, and will ring in the new year more than likely sound asleep. I can't stay up that late anymore. No more babies waking us up at all hours, so we sleep pretty soundly around here. The kids continue to grow faster than we'd like at times, but they're great and we're very proud of all of them. 2008 has brought a lot of joy to our family, new surroundings and new adventures. Some like the hurricane, we hope not to repeat next year, but we're prayerful that 2009 will be just as joyful. Happy New Year to all of you too!

Snow?!

2008-12-11T17:39:00.005-06:00

Snow?! Yes, snow! Last night around 10:30 I heard sleet falling and went out back to pull in a large hibiscus we have in a pot and thought to myself, "this is very odd for southeast Texas." Then this morning at 5:30 a.m. the phone rang and it was the school district alerting us to a delay in school, the kids didn't have to be there until 10. So Mark got up out of bed and looked out our window and said, "your'e not going to believe this, but we have snow." So at 7 the kids got up and were just shocked to see snow. MT said, "it's not supposed to snow in Texas." They immediately wanted to get out snow bibs, hats, gloves and boots, all things that we've had packed up in a box in the attic since we moved from New York. So Mark obliged and they sorted through things they hadn't worn in two years, obviously things were a little snug. Ella put on a hat that she used to wear when she was a baby.

They went outside to throw snow balls and make a snowman and one of our neighbors rushed up to them and said, "I've never seen snow. Please don't mess up my yard, it's so pretty." It was so fun to see the excitement on people's faces. Oddly enough we heard today that the last time we had any snow was right after Rita. But not as much as we had today and people were talking all day at work about how they'd never in their entire lives seen this much snow in town.

The last picture I posted a picture was taken from our house in New York one day when we had snow. I miss it, but Mark said tonight that he absolutely does not. It might have been a tight vote this morning.

Future Eagle Scouts

2008-12-06T19:18:00.004-06:00

Mark has been such a great Dad, not that he's not always great, but he's chosen to get really involved in scouting to motivate the boys to participate and they're all having a really great time. He camped with Ben about a month ago and MT two weeks ago and this weekend he took Max and Ben again. Max will return tomorrow with the rest of the campers so Mark won't have to miss another Sunday. Quite the group in their scouting gear, aren't they?

Serious Scouts

Silly Scouts

Half way to all Evens

2008-12-06T19:07:00.003-06:00

For six months out of the year we're either all odds or evens and now we're halfway to all evens again. Mark Thomas turned 8 on December 1st and brought us to 6 and 8 so after Ben turns 10 in January and Max turns 12 in March we'll be a full house of evens again. So much easier on the mom and dad to be all of one or the other.

Mark Thomas is becoming quite the magician so several gifts pertained to a new field of exploration. What a trickster that boy is becoming. He also got cowboy boots from Grandma and Grandpa and wears them everywhere. Since December is such a crazy month he opted to combine parties with Ben in January and we're going to rent out the skating rink. A perk since I work for the company who owns the rink.

Mark Thomas also had his weekend of camping with Mark two weeks ago and they went to Sam Houston state park. He's the little fellow in orange! He's also petting a little gator, which I'm very sure he contemplated bringing home. MT keeps us constantly on the go but we love him so much! He may act tough but he's quite the cuddler and loves his Momma. He told me the other night when we were running errands, "I know why Daddy married you, Momma, because you're the prettiest." Such a charmer that boy.

Ella Clare

2008-12-06T18:56:00.005-06:00

Ella and I took a little trip to Lowe's today and on the way she said, "Momma, do you know what a vegetarian is?" and I said, "what?" and she said very proudly from the back seat, "it means you can't eat candy." She's a genius, I know! But seriously, she is becoming a reading maniac. I intentionally did not work with her on reading too much last summer because she is so smart. I did not want her to be bored this year in kindergarten since she was already an older student, having missed the cut off last year by less than 20 days. So about two weeks ago I could see she was catching on very quickly and now she reads all the time. Everynight we read at least 10 books and she does all the reading with very little help. I cannot believe how fast she is growing up and she reminds me so much of Max when it comes to school. She got her hair cut this week just like she requested. She's been telling me for weeks, "I want it cut right below my ear, Momma" so I obliged and knew as soon as Jennifer was done that it was very short but it was adorable. Later that night she said to me as I was putting her to sleep, "Momma, I have a secret to tell you. I do not like my hair cut." So I explained every girl has to get used to a new hair cut when it's shorter and now after a few days and a few new hair bows she's really liking it. Hard to mess up perfection with my little Ella Clare! She also lost another tooth last night, bringing her grand total to 6.

7:30 in the morning on Saturday, really?

2008-12-06T08:02:00.002-06:00

Have you ever been totally excited about something only to have the timing of it all shake those emotions up? We felt a little bit guilty about being told by the insurance adjuster that we needed a new roof after Hurricane Ike because we were not after all directly affected by the hurricane other than by inconvenience. We were able to come right back home after the power came back on and there was no permanent damage to our home, other than some minor shingle damage and our carport was torn up. So after going through the insurance hoops and learning those ropes it turned out that we were going to be getting a whopping check to get our roof replaced, and after getting three bids, we are getting the entire roof replaced and the carport repaired and it's not costing us one single penny. Praise the Lord, we would never have that kind of money sitting around to replace the roof. There's always a but though right, well they showed up at 7:30 this morning and it's the only day of the week that I get to sleep in. I heard Shiloh barking and thought, what is going on? Pulled myself out of the warm bed, with a beautiful little girl sleeping right next to me, Mark is gone, so Ella always feels the need to keep his spot warm for him and I went to the front window only to see about 6 trucks in the cul-de-sac with the roofing company logo.

Soooo, we're getting the new roof today! And now I'm totally awake!

Transformation Almost Complete

2008-11-21T16:48:00.002-06:00

Mark has adjusted to Texas rather well and quickly I might add too. I asked him this morning while we were at the breakfast table, "Did you ever in your wildest dreams think when we met in Alabama that you'd be living in Texas, driving a truck and wearing boots?" and his immediate response was, "nope."

My grandmother, who is one of the most gracious people I have ever met decided that the boys in our family could use some new boots and those who did not have boots would get them for the first time. So when my parents were here a few weeks ago we all went to Cavender's and told the people at the front door that we needed to have Mark fitted for his "first" pair of boots and that he was from PA. I told them there was no need to announce those details over the loud speaker. So Mark picked out, very fitting to gator country where we now live, his first pair of boots made out of alligator. Pretty sure, they're real skin, so don't be offended. Gators are a plenty in Southeast Texas. Thank you Beegee, he loves them.

And since my husband has been so good to "unman" himself and drive a mini-van for the past two years, I decided it was time he should step up. I had met with someone at a local dealership that I had done some work for recently at Manning's and he gave me an excellent deal on the truck. I had totally wanted to surprise Mark with it but got nervous at the last minute so took him over last night to take a peak. the kids and us took it for a spin and it was an immediate hit. Hard to step back into the mini-van after that experience. So the truck was bought today and Mark is loving it!

He says the transformation is almost complete, he'd like a belt buckle and a hat too. Oh my goodness, this is getting scary. Baby you look good in boots and driving your new F-150.

A weekend with Ben

2008-11-19T20:15:00.003-06:00

Ben and Mark spent last weekend camping at a Boy Scout camp about an hour from here. They had a great time! Ben loves anything to do with the outdoors and as you can see from the pictures below, spent an entire weekend immersed in "boy" activities. They even had a blacksmith there and they forged some iron and made some different pieces. Of course my sweet Ben, made me a beautiful heart, that I will try to post on here later. He was so proud handing it to me when he got home. He even burned his little finger while making it and had a pretty large blister, but he didn't mind he said.

The Indians at the top were from his project he turned in at school last week. He had to write a whole page on the Apaches and then make some kind of visual. He decided he wanted to sculpt his Indians out of clay and we were amazed at his creations. Today he only came home with one of them and when I asked Mark where the other one was he told me Ben had given the other one to a little boy in his class that is blind, named Tyler. Tyler was in Ben's class last year too and they have formed a special friendship. Ben will come home at least once a week with something that Tyler has typed on his braille typewriter for him to keep and take home.

TGIF

2008-11-14T17:21:00.002-06:00

Usually this is a statement I look forward to saying each week. Thankful that another work week has been completed and I can head home to clean, referee, clean some more and try to catch up on all the projects I could not get done during the week. I have been very blessed to have found a job that usually gives me great fulfillment. Being at home with my four children while they were young was an amazing gift but I admit I often tired of not being able to use some of my other gifts. Since Ella is now in school all day I work at a locally owned school supply store but run my own department, invitation design. I get to use skills that I began acquiring back in high school with computer layout and design and I get to incorporate aspects of interior design with color combinations and layout. I really enjoy my job, on most days. I get to work with brides planning the perfect invitation for their special day and I also get to participate in plenty of other special events making custom invitations or printing on blank stock. Getting to work with people during those special times of their lives is a great pleasure.

Not today though. I'm a people pleaser, always have been and don't like to tell people no. I told a woman today that I would complete her job in a very small amount of time because we had done the bride's invitations and programs already and wanted to help out with the last minute details. The bride has been a pleasure to work with, her assistant today was anything but. The job was passed onto my partner who had designed her invitations and programs but the job today was not completed in the time frame I had specified. Differences in work styles between me and my partner. Things only went down hill from there. The assistant called my partner a _itch and my partner simply handed her the paper and said, "we cannot help you today." Well, I ended up completing the job, with a rather large woman staring me down telling me, "I'm going to stand right here and watch you until you finish every last one of those." OK...so job done. I then proceeded to tell her that I completed the job out of courtesy to the bride whom we have enjoyed working with but that I did not appreciate how she treated me or my partner today and that I felt confident had the bride known how we were being treated she would not appreciate it either. Proud of myself for remaining composed but steaming inside, wanting to scream at the top of my lungs.

All this ranting simply to state...being rude does not make me want to help you any faster. Do people really think that getting an attitude and being rude will want someone to work any harder for them? I work in an industry completely defined by relationships with my clients and I always work to the best of my ability and move mountains to get jobs done on time, creating exactly what my clients have seen in their minds for years and have many letters of praise in my employee folder to substantiate that but today was a day I could not wait to walk out that door.

TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 44th President of the United States

2008-11-05T19:47:00.003-06:00

I read this entry on a blog I follow. It's been published in Relevant Magazine. It expresses a lot of what's been on my mind for months. I have very definite opinions about this current election season, some don't always fall in line with where I would have put myself years ago. I don't mind answering questions about these thoughts but don't really feel like posting them on my blog. It's not an arena for debate.

America Chooses Obama
By Roxanne Wieman

Well, here we are on the other side. A watershed moment. An historic election. And we, the American people, have made our choice.

Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States, and the nation’s first black president. And in elections across the country, Democrats won their seats in the Senate. When Obama takes office in January, he will do so with a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

“The American people have spoken, and spoken clearly,” McCain told his supporters in Arizona after the results came in.

But what about you? Those of you who took our RELEVANT poll yesterday favored McCain: 47 percent of you voted for the Arizona Senator and 33 percent of you for Obama. So, are you disappointed? Will you hang your heads today? Do you fear for our nation’s future? I’m not so sure.

So many of us—members of the widely contested “young evangelical voters”—were divided about this election. Not just as a group, but even in our own hearts. I know which candidate I chose, but it wasn’t an easy decision. And, to be honest, I didn’t really care who won. I agreed with both. I disagreed with both.

What I’m wondering now is where do we go from here?

While the electoral vote and popular vote strongly favored Obama, our country is still largely divided. This was a hard-fought, personal and passionate race. There are wounds on both sides. Can Obama and the Democratic congress heal those wounds? Can we help?

Yes and yes.

Obama ran as a unifier. He condemned our party divisions and championed cooperation across party lines. Many of the Democrats who won seats in the Senate ran with similar platforms. If Obama and the Congress majority maintain that position and “reach across the aisle” in the years to come, that will certainly go a long way in healing our wounds and unifying our country. Karl Rove has already expressed his own wish that the Republicans would do the same, "I hope we will support [Obama] when we agree with him, persuade him when we think his mind is open, and oppose him when we think he is wrong."

Whether unity happens in Washington or not, the question still returns to us: what can we do to help? As Francis Schaeffer so famously put it, “How shall we then live?” Now that the election is over and Obama and the Democrats have so clearly won, how shall we then live? I believe that we, the young Christian voters, can uniquely answer this question. I believe, in fact, that this is the very question we are so primed to answer. Because this election and its profound life issues has galvanized us to true action.

Yes, we voted. But it’s more than that. Through this election, we’ve become aware of the major social issues of our day. And now we want to do something about them. We recognize an election will not change everything. We do not rest our hopes for change on a political party or candidate. We vote, we hope, but we don’t stop there. Tomorrow and the next day and the next and in January when Obama takes office, we get up and we continue our sojourn to follow Jesus. We live our votes for life, for justice, for peace, for equality.

We comfort our friend who tells us she’s considering abortion. Then we gently tell her why we believe life in the womb is precious. We help her find alternative options … and we stick by her side all through the pregnancy and birth and after. She is not a statistic or a faceless evil to us.

We love beyond racial, gender and sexual lines. We reject stereotypes. We embrace individuals. We work for reconciliation.

We do not talk about “that side of town,” we live there and work there and mentor there. We are a part of educational reform, and ESL, and rehabilitation.

We recycle. We reduce our imprint. We consciously make our purchases, recognizing the global implications. We strive to “live simply that others may simply live” (Ghandi).

We personally pray for our soldiers in Iraq, for the citizens of Iraq, for our leaders who are making tough decisions that affect millions of lives. We really do pray, and we believe our prayers matter.

We continue to work hard in the jobs God has given us, saving our money and stewarding our resources. We tithe. We donate. We volunteer.

We continually challenge each other to deepen our understanding of whole life ethics and Jesus’ call to follow Him.

I believe this is who we are. I believe this is who you are. I believe we can be the change we’ve voted for—no matter who we voted for.

Roll Tide Roll

2008-10-28T09:09:00.003-05:00

Mark, Max and I will be attending the Alabama-LSU game in November! We are so excited. I had been praying that we'd find a way to get tickets somehow, but really just for Mark and Max. Mark and I graduated from Alabama and Max was born in Tuscaloosa. He attended several Tide games while in the womb and also attended a Bama bowl game several years ago but now he really follows the Tide and they're number 2 in the country!

We are so thankful to the Ables for their generosity. Season ticket holders for LSU they have graciously given us three tickets, knowing this is a super fun season for Bama. We promise not to yell too loud around the LSU fans, well we'll try at least. Roll Tide Roll!

A new home for Shiloh

2008-10-25T16:57:00.004-05:00

We thought we might really have to find a new home for Shiloh but for now we're committed to keeping her and just dealing with our completely grumpy, mean, threatening neighbor. For the last two weeks we have come home to notes being tacked to our front door filled with threats to call animal control and file charges against us for our barking dog, but our ever mature neighbor has mistakenly forgotten to leave his name or the house number where we can reach him to try and be neighborly in a good way. We have always kept Shiloh in the laundry room at night so barking at night never happens and during the day I will admit she barks when people or cars go behind our fence on the street behind us, but last time I checked dogs were allowed to bark. So we continue to speak to her when she barks for just a minute longer than we think she should during the day, and we're hoping with some therapy she'll become reformed enough that our neighbors will cease from dropping off their lovely notes.

In the mean time, the kids and Mark have been working on a dog house for her and I must admit, I'm rather shocked at how well it's turned out! I'll post a few pics now and then try to get a few more when it's completely done. It's large enough that if the kids misbehave it could be a temporary home for them as well.

Our little Evangelist

2008-10-25T10:13:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Mark was on top of the roof removing the ivy that had grown up the back of the chimney and had finally crept its way over the top and inside the chimney so that when we turned on our fireplace we wouldn't have any problems. Well, Ella was out back watching him and said, "Daddy, be careful and don't fall", "I don't want you to die." Then Mark said she looked at him real serious and said, "well you do have eternal life". Mark said, "yes, I do, but I'm not ready to go anywhere yet, so I'll be careful.

A Fish Tale

2008-10-17T11:17:00.003-05:00

Mark went deep sea fishing with one of our neighbors several months ago and had a fabulous time. We saw his catch when he returned home and he told us all about how big the two fish were, only it was a little hard to believe because after they'd been cleaned their contents fit into two small zip lock baggies. Sure, we told him, the fish you caught were so big!

Well our neighbor's wife, also Max's teacher last year, brought the "proof" over last night. She was so kind, she had an 8x10 and a 5x7 made and put the picture on a disk for us. Of course I teased Mark that they looked photo shopped but eventually gave him the glory he felt he was due! A memory in print!

Spunk

2008-10-17T11:10:00.004-05:00

Our family has sponsored three children in different countries for the last 3 years and every year at least once the organization sends us photo updates along with information on their communities and their school work. We try to send a few packages to the children every year and look forward to their notes. They are simply precious reminders of how much children are the same all over the world. This week we received a picture of Alettah and we were so tickled by her spunk.

Her little face and peace sign brought us all to laughter. Not to mention the hand on her hip. It's been a year since we hosted the Ugandan orphans in our home and that experience changed our lives. We still think of the boys often, especially Allan and are still coming to grips with how that situation unfolded. So the note this week from Alettah was just what we needed, to remind us that our work is still unfinished and even if we can only send a small amount to each of the three children every month, that small amount accounts for so much for them.

A Total Success

2008-10-08T10:07:00.002-05:00

My two sisters and I have been planning a surprise 40th anniversary party for over a year now. We were not sure if we could pull off a total surprise especially without the 8 grandkids blowing it but we did! Last weekend, my crew drove up to Dallas and spent the night with my sister. The next day we arranged the tables, chairs and decorations under the tent that we had rented and had been installed in my sister's backyard. We had everything planned out and it went perfectly. My parents were scheduled to arrive around 6 and even when they saw me answer the door they thought I was just surprising them to celebrate my beautiful niece's 13th birthday. Once inside the house, everyone yelled Happy Anniversary and they knew what we'd been up to. We completely surprised them, everyone we invited came, the food was delicious, the weather was perfect and we all had the best time. It was a total success and we were so proud!

Who'd want that job?

2008-10-02T21:47:00.004-05:00

Tonight as Mark and I were sitting in the living room watching the Vice Presidential debate, Ella came in to sit by me on the couch to color. She was not even facing the television and was asking me several questions about what I thought she should color but I could tell her ears were still tuned to what was being said on the tv. She said, "Did Obama win?" and I said, "We don't know who will win yet. This is a debate to help us decide who we should vote for." And she said, "I don't know why you'd want to be president. You'd just have a hard life, with all that paperwork and stuff." Mark and I just about fell on the floor. So wise, that new 6 year old child of ours is! Who'd want that job?

Birthday Girl

2008-10-01T19:34:00.002-05:00

Hard to believe our little Ella Clare is 6! Several times this week I was talking about her and when someone would ask how old she was I was shocked to have to say 6! She is an absolute blessing to our family. When I found out I was pregnant for the fourth time many of our family and friends thought we were completely nuts and maybe deep down we did too, but we were so excited. The first reaction would always be, "So, you're hoping for a girl this time right?" Well, we weren't, we just had always wanted 4 children. When I was pregnant with Mark Thomas we were told he was a girl at first but an ultrasound later found out that was not to be, so the first time they told us Ella was to be a girl, we just weren't ready to go out and buy pink. Since I was a high risk pregnancy again, we had many ultrasounds and after about the 5th one when they again said she'd be a girl, we went nuts.

She's loved so much! She can be loud like her brothers, but she is so different in many, many ways. Her brothers are becoming more and more keen to their job as protector and I'm always telling her how lucky she is to have 3 BIG BROTHERS. She doesn't always get that, but every girl I ever knew wished she'd had a big brother and I was one of those girls too. After doing our part to carry on the Keffer name three times over, we were elated when she entered the world.

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Crazy Moms and Routine

2008-09-24T09:03:00.004-05:00

I have been a creature of routine for as long as I can remember. Diverging from that routine sends me into a rather quick tail spin and those that suffer most unfortunately are those around me the most, my hubby and kids. It's not like I don't know this is how I function but yet allowing some flexibility isn't a strong suit of mine. My kids have only been in school for 10 day, hear that 10 days this year so far; and it took almost everything I had to get through last summer. Don't get me wrong, I love my children, but they too like routine and when they don't have it they pick fights, lots of fights and they go from room to room in our home creating minor mess after minor mess that due to my compulsive cleaning only I can seem to clean properly enough.

I was beginning to feel really guilty until I went to church last Sunday and was able to commiserate with two other moms who had battled evacuation and hurrication as single parents like me. One asked me, did they fight along the way? Mine were fighting so much that at one point I heard skin to skin contact and several loud thuds, she said. Thank God, I thought to myself, I was not alone in that journey. She said, I had to pull the car over at one point and just scream. Again, thank God, I was not alone in that journey either. Except I pulled over twice, so rapidly and so quickly that everything that was piled in two seats, just slumped to the floor. I was thankful that my rather new tires held up well during the rapid halt of movement. As I was pulling over quickly and screaming at the top of my lungs, I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear mirror and just about died. Really, really is that an image I want ingrained in my children's minds? I think not, but I had to quickly ask, "Do you like seeing me like this?" No, was their immediate response but that begged the question, "then why do you keep acting like this, when I'm driving in this car alone for several hours on a busy two lane highway?" "We don't know", was said in unison.

It will never cease to amaze me how much 4 children can argue and pick at each other. Wouldn't life be so much simpler if EVERYONE JUST CHOSE TO BE NICE AND GET ALONG?! This is my daily prayer now, that my children will learn to extend grace and compassion towards each other. We're using those words a lot now. Please God let them sink in!

When I was in Rockwall, we went to a mega church up the road from my parents house. It's a fabulous church, love the music but I could not worship there regularly. It's just too large for me. But the service that day was so great! The pastor was teaching on prayer and how families today just don't pray together enough, so he challenged everyone in the congregation to be families that would commit to a 7-5-2 calendar. Praying for your family 7 days a week, praying with your family 5 days a week and praying with your spouse 2 days a week.

We took the challenge! Can't say that our calendar is a total 7-5-2 yet but we're attempting to get there and look forward to seeing what will happen when we do. I'm hoping that my title "Crazy Mom" will begin to dissipate a little bit and I will be able to see characteristic changes in my children that make our home more harmonious. Miracles do happen right? Absolutely!

Good to be Home

2008-09-20T08:27:00.003-05:00

The kids and I got home last night around 5. Driving into town was surreal. Seeing is definitely believing. Spending many years in Kansas as a child, I don't think I totally understood how much damage a tornado could do until I saw a town after it'd been hit by one. Similarly, seeing our town after it had been hit by one of the largest hurricanes, although only a cat 2, and the destruction it left here just makes you sad. So many lives have been affected. We have several church members whose homes have been badly damaged and I know of two people, one I work closely with whose home was totally destroyed, including most things in it.

As Ella and I went to HEB this afternoon to pick up some groceries, we took a different route out of our neighborhood and saw that nearly every single fence had been blown down, just snapped at the posts. Ella said, "Momma, do you know why our house was not hurt?" I asked why, and she said, "Before we went to Mimi's I was praying in my room and God got my message, so our house wasn't hurt much at all."

We do have a lot to be thankful for; a home with very little damage, power that returned surprisingly pretty quickly, and loving families that helped us out in so many ways this past week. We are so thankful for all of those things and will continue to pray and do what we can to help others less fortunate. This morning we started the day at church with an informal praise and worship time. Then Mark Thomas, Ella and I helped to rake up all the debris from the day school playground along with several other church members. Max went with another church member to saw into chunks some larger trees that had fallen at a woman's house and help to carry them to the curb. Don't worry he wasn't the one using the chain saw. And Mark took Ben and helped clear debris from another man's home.

Tomorrow we're having our two services outside, mostly just to be a presence for the community as they drive past our corner and also to combat the fact that the church still does not have power. We'll be praising God for sure.

The kids will have next week off from school. That makes a total of two weeks for this hurrication. Would you believe that they've only been in school for 10 days so far this year? They're hardly complaining but I'm definitely ready for them and us to get back into our normal routine.

When being tall isn't a good thing

2008-09-17T17:42:00.002-05:00

Mark went home today and arrived without any problem. We still do not have power and may not for several days. We've been told by several people that our area tends to be last for some reason.

I also heard today that only 4 schools in the city have power and 2 completely lost their roofs. So the board will meet next week to make decisions about when to restart.

Mark went up into the attic in the main house to relight the pilot and due to his lovely height he hit his head on a rafter, lost his balance and stuck his leg through the dining room ceiling. He called me to say that he had made a rather large boo-boo. Learning from lessons in the past, when he told me what he'd done, I knew to ask about him first and check to make sure he was ok before I asked too many questions about my dining room. I just said, "well, I've been wanting to redo that room anyway, so now I have to."

Positive Signs

2008-09-16T20:08:00.002-05:00

We've heard today that two of our main roads that are very close to our house have power today. Our neighborhood still does not but we're hopeful that maybe within the next few days we'll be up and running. Mark is going home tomorrow. Always the minister, he can't stand to be sitting here doing nothing and wants to get back to help others out. So we've borrowed a generator, thanks Jacksons and he'll be back on the home front tomorrow. Still no school so our hurrication continues.

A Family Again

2008-09-15T08:48:00.002-05:00

Mark is here! He arrived last night around 9:30. He hasn't made the trip to Rockwall as often as I have lately so he missed a few roads and had to wind around in the dark so he was very relieved to pull into the driveway. All the kids were so excited to see him and Shiloh went nuts when she saw the kids! I think she thought she'd died and gone to heaven in my parents back yard. This morning she was still acting crazy and Mark said, "you know what they say about people who drink salt water?" My parents have a salt water pool and Shiloh thinks it's just one big bowl of water for her. Hopefully she figures out real quickly that it's not really for her!

We're going up to the school in an hour or two just to check out the process of enrollment. The kids are now expressing some concern and I can't say that I blame them. It's hard to think about starting over in a place where you obviously know you won't be staying. But we got the phone call last night that our schools were "closed indefinitely" so until we know about our power it appears as if we'll be here awhile.

I found out yesterday that our power grid is supplied from a substation in Bridge City, which was flooded heavily by over 4 feet of salt water which does tremendous damage. So we've been told it could be 4-6 weeks before we get power back. I hope that's a very generous estimate so that we're all surprised when it comes back on much quicker than that.

Mark will be traveling back home later this week. He is supposed to preach on Sunday and he also feels very called to helping people in our area who received more damage to their homes than we did. I will be calling the insurance agency sometime today or tomorrow to file a claim on our car port. Mark said that he feels pretty confident the whole structure will have to come down in order to be repaired.

It was very strange for him last night watching the nightly news. He has not seen any coverage of the storm since it happened so he was just shocked by the damage in Galveston and parts of the coast that we have become so familiar with in the last year. He obviously knew our town looked rough but seeing the area where the eye went through just blows your mind.

Mark is on his way

2008-09-14T15:58:00.002-05:00

Mark is on his way North as I type. In all his preparations to get the house and church ready, he forgot to fill the van up so he's hoping to encounter a station quickly. I've seen on the news that wait times are 2-3 hours for gas and they're only allowing you to get 10 gallons at a time. Hopefully once he gets North enough he'll be able to fill up. Living down in the land of refineries you quickly get a sense of how important those facilities and jobs are, not just to our community but to the entire United States. The refineries less than 30 minutes from us process several million gallons of crude oil daily.

I'm very thankful that he's on his way. It's been very stressful dealing with the kids and two evacuations in less than three weeks and now just knowing that you can't go back to your house. It's hard. We're hopeful that we'll know more as the days progress and that we can all be back in Beaumont soon, slipping back into our routines. The boys were just starting baseball season and Ella was looking forward to starting gymnastics.

Damage Assessment

2008-09-14T08:42:00.003-05:00

Local officials continue to do damage assessment within our town and as of right now the info is not that promising. Entergy, our power supplier, says that 99% of Texans in southeast Texas are without power and 119 out of 187 transmission lines are out with two entire plants off line, so they do not estimate that we'll have power for weeks. The sewer lines have been comprised so you can guess what that means. And several of our local schools sustained a lot of damage too.

Mark still has cell service, our home line is out. He and I continue to be in contact and he more than likely will head our way today, if he can get out. He spent so much time preparing our house and helping some of our church members that he's concerned about how much gas he has in his tank now, and there are no gas stations open. Also the damage to some local highways is not totally known and as the storm progressed north, it did more damage through towns we usually travel through but are not shown on our local news, just national, so it's hard to know what the roads are like there.

I just tried to pull up our school board site and it's offline so I'm not sure what we'll do about school for the kids. They're obviously not begging me to find a solution but I'm nervous about the possibility of them being out school for weeks. I have all their records with me in the paperwork you should always have in place to gather if there's a storm, so I could register them here at my parents but that seems like such a headache.

Just wanted to give everyone a little update and I'll continue to do so when I have something a little more promising to post. Thank you so much for all the messages you've sent to our email and cell phones. We really appreciate the support.

Good News and Bad News

2008-09-13T17:51:00.002-05:00

The good news is that our house was not damaged that much. We had some minor damage to our carport area with shingles and tar paper getting torn off. Thanks to my wonderful husband the rest of the house faired well. During Hurricane Dolly and a tropical storm we had about three weeks ago, the boys new room had taken on water twice. Mark surmised that it was the city water backing up under the toilet in their bathroom so he uncovered the manhole in our back yard and capped off that line, hoping to prevent another back up this time. Well, today when he went to check on the house, he spent last night at our church, he went out to pull off the cover of that manhole and the water was all the way up to the top, so had he not capped off our line the boys' room would most definitely have taken on a lot of water.

Beaumont did sustain a lot of damage. If you'd like to see some live footage and videos of our town you can go to www.kfdm.com and they have a lot of coverage. It's hard to imagine, knowing now exactly the streets they're traveling, many of them less than 2 minutes from our home. I'm very thankful that we heeded the evacuation orders and left town. Our energy provider has stated that the damage is catastrophic and worse than Rita, so we're not sure how long it will be before we get power again.

The kids and I are concerned obviously but could not be in a better place. Having my family so close is wonderful. My brother in law, that is a police officer, called me the day I got here and said, "you should go to a shelter, you'd get everything free," and I quickly said, "I'm pretty sure I'll get most things free exactly where I am." The comfort of a familiar home with cousins and sisters around is just fine by me.

Mark is determing if he'll try to head North tomorrow, since we'll be without power for a few days at least. We appreciate the prayers and will gladly take any more you'd offer up. I've missed a week of work as of right now and the kids are behind in school. Their teachers were so apologetic last week at Goal's Night, explaining that they have such rigid curriculum guidelines that they're so behind right now, and that was just with three days off for Gustav, so now with 2 more and likely this next week too, I'm sure we'll have a lot to catch up on.

But, God is good, our house is intact and my husband is safe. I'll keep this up date as much as possible during the next few days but again, if you'd like to see what's current in our town, check out www.kfdm.com.

Our Second Home

2008-09-11T18:34:00.002-05:00

Just as expected Mark and I did make quick decisions this morning. I knew going to bed last night around midnight that the storm had again shifted North so at 6 a.m. I knew when the phone rang that it would be the school district notifying us of cancellation for today and tomorrow. So we quickly got up and started packing. The kids and I left around 8:30 a.m. and it took us 8 hours to make what is normally a 5 hour trip to Dallas. Mark has again stayed at home, making sure that all the elderly people in our church are taken care of, since the mandatory evacuation occurred so late. He said several of them were very stressed this morning as couples were separated so that the less mobile would be transported by emergency vehicles and their spouses were left to figure out how to follow or where to go for safety. He is going to finish preparing our house for the storm and will then decide if he stays and rides it out along with a few other families or heads to Dallas to join us. Although the kids are loving these "hurrications" the stress and fatigue it's taking on Mark and me both physically and financially is getting really old. Hurricane season does not officially end until November 30th but yesterday was officially the height of the season so none of this is a surprise just not enjoyable by anyone living near the shore. We'll keep you all posted. The Keffer family echos what was seen on several signs as we headed North, "Take a hike Ike!"

Here we go Again

2008-09-10T22:57:00.002-05:00

We are well within this "cone" and yet no one is calling for evacuation. When we were clearly not going to get Gutav as a visitor we were all ordered to evacuate without question. So can someone please explain to me why this storm is barreling straight toward our coastline and we're all just sitting still? Mark and I are going to be making some quick decisions in the morning trying to figure out what we should do. School has been canceled for some of our surrounding areas but not our district yet; although the university has cancelled classes tomorrow and Friday. We ask you again to pray for our safety and those surrounding us. It's very hard to pray that the storm go somewhere else because you just don't want anyone else to be harmed or their homes to be damaged.

These are some pictures of what Mark saw when he went to Baton Rouge last week after Gustav went through. The news media continues to amaze us. All you hear about on the national news is New Orleans this and New Orleans that but there are so many other communities that have been devastated by recent hurricanes and yet you never even hear about them or their struggles.

Tattle Tale

2008-09-08T20:50:00.004-05:00

School is always interesting with four children and to be quite honest, although I pray for our teachers every year and practically beg God to give us good ones, things don't always work out as I'd hoped.

I can pretty much count on the behaviour of all my children, both good and bad, so most things do not surprise me. Still nonetheless, I want people to see the good in my children even if on some days they have to look a little harder.

In Mark Thomas' class they come home with conduct folders each week and there are comments for each day along with a final grade for that week. Well, after the first week, I could tell this would not be a folder I looked forward to seeing each week. His teacher had written talking, talking, talking, talking for each day and yelling at recess on one specific day and given him a conduct grade of 70% for that week. Great, we're off to a good start! I signed the folder and then wrote my own comment that I would speak to him and it would be clear that there would be consequences if it didn't improve.

Now, I am not a mother that is above bribery and when I think it will work, I go full steam ahead. MT loves to go to the dollar store and knows the true value of a dollar even if he doesn't always save them up. So, my proposition, should he choose to accept it would be that temporarily until we got on track, if he were to come home with a conduct grade of 90% he'd get to buy something for $5 or less, and if he came home with a grade of 100% then we'd celebrate with something $10 or less. He very quickly jumped aboard!

So last week since we took what Max is now calling a "hurrication" we only had two days of school. Really, how much damage can be done in two days to not earn a good score. So on Friday, I was actually anxious to see what he was given for conduct. 90%was his score, but still we got "talking" on one day and then just to cap it off "sticking pretzels in his ears at lunch" was on Fridays box. I mean honestly, boys will be boys and both Mark and I had to chuckle while at the same time saying, "MT, it's not a good idea to stick pretzels in your ears" and at that very moment I thought to myself, no more buying pretzel sticks, I must buy the regular twist ones.

Who says evacuation can't be fun?

2008-09-05T15:26:00.002-05:00

We spent 3 days up in Dallas and it turned into a mini vacation for the kids. There's never anything boring about going up to see your cousins. The kids got several more days of swimming in and some tubing on the boat too. The boys have been jumping off the waterfall for years but Ella has gotten so brave this summer and just swims around my parents pool like she's been doing it forever!

Evacuation

2008-08-30T10:20:00.003-05:00

Our city officials are doing an evacuation of elderly and disabled beginning at Noon today and have called for a voluntary evacuation of the rest of the city. If the storm continues on the same track or worsens then we have been advised that a mandatory evacuation will be called for at 6 AM tomorrow. So...the children and I are leaving within the hour to head North to Dallas and will be spending a long weekend with my parents. Mark is going to wait until tomorrow to help batten down the church should the danger of imminent damage to our town be clearer and then he'll decide if he's going to ride it out with other locals, which many are doing, or if he'll then head North to meet us.

Please pray for the safety of our family, our friends and our home. It's a very surreal feeling walking from room to room trying to decide what you'll pack for a "just in case" event. We've collected all the precious things that cannot be replaced and they're piled in the dining room in tubs and trunks ready for Mark to load them into his vehicle.

I'll try to post regularly so no one worries about us.

Changing of the Guard

2008-08-29T09:39:00.004-05:00

Ella is one lucky little girl. She has three big brothers to always watch over her and take care of her. Only those brothers didn't immediately take on that responsibility when she was born, it's a honed craft that takes years to develop. We're still working on it but for years now Ella has said, "Max, always helps me" and in a lower hushed tone, never where her other brothers could hear her, she'd say, "he's my favorite." Shocking to the other two I know it would be but hey, Max worked hard for that distinction.

So last night I was putting Ella to bed and we were talking about her routine of walking to and from school and I asked her if she was going into the cafeteria in the morning and she said, "yesterday, Ben just walked me to my classroom" and I said, "what did you do when you were walking home?" and she said, "my teacher says we need to tell her goodbye everyday so that she knows we're leaving before we get up off the bench outside, so I saw MT and Ben and called their names and they came over". I asked if they both then walked her home and she said, "well, Ben did but MT just ran off. Ben is becoming a good brother," she said with a smile.

I then went out into the older boys room and was rubbing their backs praising Ben for being such a good big brother and he got this wide grin on his face that showed such pride in knowing his little sister was now depending on him more. Then Max chimed in and said, "it's an important job, guess you can take over for me now a little bit." Three big brothers, every little girl's dream! There's still hope for Mark Thomas right?!

Back to School

2008-08-27T13:22:00.003-05:00

Finally the children are all back in school. We had a wonderful summer, full of more activities than we thought there would be and everyone had a lot of fun. Two significant milestones for our family were on tap for back to school. Max started 6th grade at the middle school and Ella went to kindergarten. Everyone left for school and returned with smiles on their faces so we were very thankful for that. Ella walks to school with Ben and Mark Thomas and they're under strict instructions to walk her home. So far so good. I take and pick up Max on my way to and from work and it works out perfectly.

With Ella, there is always a funny story, so this was our conversation last night while we were at the ball field. Max is on a select baseball team now so we're already practicing.
"I can't believe kindergartens have PE, wait is PE what's in the gym?" "yes" I said, "what did you do in PE today?" "Squads, I don't even know what a squad is, but Coach said, you're in squad 1, then he said squad 2, squad 3, squad 4, squad 5, squad 6, and squad 7. That's a lot of squads, Mom." Then he said, "what are your brother's names" and she said, "Max and MT" and I said, "what about Ben?" and she said, "I didn't want to list too many names." Oh my little Ella Clare. Always great for a laugh, just when you need it.

Another new addition. As if I didn't have enough to clean up after. Add another pet with black hair that sheds! But she is sweet. Rescued from the dumpster, literally. Whiskers had no idea the lap of luxury that awaited her.

Ella's first day of kindergarten. Can you tell she's lost 5 teeth already?

Our crazy crew, back to school! Praise the Lord!

School supplies for three children, thankfully in middle school they don't request 5 dozen pencils and 8 boxes of crayons along with countless other things. I felt like I was buying for the whole class based on what they asked us to buy for each child.

Wee Wacky Wednesday

2008-08-13T22:12:00.004-05:00

Our church has a great program run during the summer on Wednesdays where kids younger than junior high down to age 4 can come every week and explore a great activity with other children. Today they went to the Houston Aquarium and had a ball. Mark even got in on the action. I was so shocked when Mark showed me the picture of Ella on the ride, this is the very same girl who a year ago would not go on one single ride at Disney World except It's a Small World. While those three were out of town, I took Max to middle school to register him. Three hours, it took. I told him I felt like I was buying a house, with all the paper work I filled out. We had a good time together though.

Fun times with Cousins

2008-08-13T18:32:00.003-05:00

The kids had a great time at Mimi and Papa's last week. Two movies, laser tag, indoor rock wall climbing, waterpark and many evenings out on the boat, swimming and tubing. Mark Thomas and Macie had a little adventure on the tube that led to MT getting a small black eye and Papa having to buy a new liner for the tube. Max now realizes the fun of having Papa go a little crazy while driving and had fun "falling out" of the tube. And the three little girls are just too funny with each other. We affectionately call them "Triple Trouble" and they usually live up to it. All the kids are so close in age and it's just so much fun to see them interacting with each other. I'm so thankful that we see them more often now that we're in TX. It's a very special relationship and they're all very connected. Max and Carson were even swapping school stories and when Heather and I would ask them a question they would give each other glances trying to determine how much information they wanted to divulge. A little scary for Heather and I but we're glad they feel close enough to chat about that "stuff".

Mark ended up coming along too for the water park day. I had planned to drive up by myself to get them and return on Sunday but when Ben found out that Mark wasn't coming he started to spread a little smack and when Mark found out about it he decided to surprise him. So he called Ben from the car trip up and was telling Ben how much he wished he could be there and Ben was not happy at all. I called them a little later and again Ben was saying how much he wanted to go down the slides with Mark and I played dumb, not hard these days with all that's been going on this summer with 4 crazy kids at home. So when I pulled into my parent's driveway, I went in the back door as usual and was greeted by all the kids, very affectionately I might add, since they hadn't seen me in 5 days and then the front door bell rang and the kids ran to open it. Don't quite know why they always act as if they've never heard that sound before or had visitors but it's always a fight to see who will get there first. So when they opened the door and saw Mark it was rather priceless. Mark said, "I heard someone here was trash talking on my good name" and Ben just got this huge smile on his face. It was a fun week of family time and many more memories were made.

Finally up and running

2008-08-06T17:21:00.002-05:00

Our hard drive crashed about three weeks ago and we're just so darn busy that it took us forever to get it fixed. So thanks to Mr. Craig Pember we're up and running again today. Unfortunately we lost all of our email addresses through Outlook so if you don't mind, if you check in and read this post, please email us at keffercrew@gt.rr.com just so we can add you back in.

A whole week alone

2008-08-03T19:46:00.008-05:00

Summer is quickly coming to an end and I think we're all ready to see it go. It's always fun to have the kids at home but I thrive on routine and when every week is different with camps and activities, it just makes it hard to ever find a routine. My parents came this weekend to see the boys last swim meet and they left this afternoon and took all 4 kids with them! Hooray, Mark and I have 5 whole days to ourselves and then I'll drive up to Dallas to get them next weekend and head home, but not before me and my sisters and their crews head to a local waterpark for some Swafford family fun! All of our kids are so close to each other and they get so excited knowing they're going to see each other, so it'll be a fun week had by everyone.

The boys had a great swim season this year. Max finished third overall in the region for high points and he's in the bottom of his age bracket. So look out swimmers next year when he's in the top of his bracket.

Ben swam a great season too! He's got great form and motors through the water with all his upper body strength. You should see him in action.

Mark Thomas was the only swimmer called to receive his awards with a nickname. The coaches said, "Mark Thomas, 'Wild Man' will you come up and get your awards?" His name will always proceed him. He's a charmer, quickly becoming the favorite among all the high school girls. Boy, are we ever in trouble.

And last but not least, Ella received an honoary award for being a faithful supporter, "always dressed up and accompanying her pal, Danielle" said the coaches. She was so surprised, it was adorable! If you've got to travel all over town to cheer on your brothers you might as well do it in style, right?!

I'm off to watch the finale of Design Star. Can't wait to see who wins!

Vote Now

2008-07-27T21:05:00.002-05:00

I have been a fan of HGTV forever and this year have enticed my whole family to watch design star with me. We've loved sitting down on the couch on Sunday nights to see whose "show will be canceled" and tonight got to see the final challenge. Last week MT got sick a few hours before the show started, just cleaned out his stomach and laid on the couch next to me. He fell asleep before the show was over and first thing the next morning he said, "Mom, who's show got canceled?" I loved it! So vote now! We're voting for Jennifer!
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/design_star_2008/

Well, hello Dolly!

2008-07-24T16:27:00.003-05:00

Living within hurricane territory is still something we're getting used to. The season lasts until November and since Rita swept through nearly three years ago every time there's a system in the Gulf people tend to panic and rightfully so. I have seen pictures of what the town looked like after the storm and they were incredible. We were all in our house last season when Humberto blew through in the middle of the night as a surprise category 1. We were all shocked to see how much the trees blew then, so needless to say, our family very quickly decided we'd not stay around for anything that could be stronger.

Well, now that Dolly has reached shore South of us, we're all fine. Several friends have called to check. We're just getting a lot and I mean a lot of rain! Hard to imagine that a system that is nearly 5 hours South of us could spread rain bands so far in diameter. So much rain that we actually had water coming into the boys' new bathroom this afternoon. Mark and the boys used a wet vac to soak it all up and we'll be closely monitoring it to make sure it doesn't take on any more. When that space was remodeled we had the foundation raised several inches to alleviate that problem but drainage is such a huge issue down here. Our soil is lovingly called gumbo and it does not take on water well.

My sister and her crew are headed to town tomorrow. We're all anxious to spend some time with them. Being so close now to my family has allowed many more visits than we've ever had in the past. I saw my other sister and her family two weeks ago and my parents will be coming to town next weekend.

Just like old times

2008-07-08T07:46:00.007-05:00

My goodness how time flies. It's hard to believe we're already into July. It has been so long since I've blogged. I spent several days packing and getting the kids ready to go to camp. All three of the boys went to church camp for one week for the very first time and had so much fun. I was so into the mode of getting them ready that I hadn't really gotten to the emotional part of actually being away from them for one week. The list to get them ready was a mile long.

They each had to have trunks to hold their main clothing and a duffle bag for their linens. Three of every toiletry item, three of EVERYTHING on the list and three times the help getting them all ready. That part I could have done without but they each took such pleasure in getting their things organized. When we dropped them off, we went to each cabin and made their beds and met their counselors. Then it was time to head back home. I got into the truck and suddenly it dawned on me that they would be gone for one week! Like I said before, I was not prepared. Every day, while they were gone when they'd come to mind, which was very often, I'd say a little prayer for each of them. When I crawled into bed at night I'd say what MT asks me to say every night, "pray for good dreams and not bad thoughts."

Both Mark and I had bets on who would hug us when we went to pick them up. Definitely MT, he's the cuddler and maybe Max but he's getting so big now that sometimes it's just not cool, and we'd be lucky to get within 5 feet of Ben because any show of emotion in public is simply not permitted with him; but when we rounded the corner all three of them came running right up to us and each gave us big hugs. We were thrilled! Their counselors had the best things to say about them and all the way home they each told story after story of the fun things they had done. When we got home, Max was laying on my bed next to me and he cuddled right up to me and said, "that was the best week of my life, Mom."

Well, it was unpacking and then packing again very quickly for Max and me. The very same day we got home from camp, he and I headed to Houston to spend the night near the airport to head to New York the next day. One of my very best friends had asked me to fly home to help her prepare to decorate her husband's new office space. Wendy is an amazing person, always knew that but this week proved it even more. She has four kids also and was shuffling them around to make sure they got to each of their activities but while managing the household, is also overseeing a HUGE contracting project to revamp an old pizzeria into her husband's new dermatology office. Each day she'd awake and make the list of what we needed to do and we just plowed right through it. We had so much fun shopping for all the furniture, art work and accessories to dress the new office. But most of all, I had fun being with her almost every minute of the day for 4 days. I miss her terribly, but being with her again was almost like we'd never been apart. Great friends are like that and I feel so blessed to have her in my life. Ali girl, you too. I love your spirit and will be thinking so much about you in the months to come. You can do it!

Max and I also enjoyed being back in Central New York. It is undeniably one of the most beautiful places in the United States and we did not take a moment for granted. I ate breakfast and spent any time I could on Wendy's front porch looking out onto the lake. I savored our drives through the country side taking in each green field and little farm house tucked back into the corner. My mind kept playing tricks on me, looking out to the street downtown one day while we were having lunch, feeling like I had never left Wendy and we were just enjoying one of many lunches we've shared and yet looking out to see a construction truck with a familiar name and yet realizing it was not a name I see where we live now and then quickly remembering that we had moved and these were not sights I see all the time anymore.

We saw several other wonderful friends and leaving the Harding's house was so hard, knowing that it'd be months maybe even a year before we'd see them all again. Max was perfectly content to play in their beautiful, huge back yard and seeing him so happy with old friends was so special. This move has been hard on him and he told me several times, during our stay that he was not yet ready to head back south. I struggled to find the words to encourage him, knowing I wasn't ready to head home either. Trying to explain that it was alright to feel that way and yet we needed to find the good things about being down here too, and even though there are many good things here, it seems like a piece of our hearts is still up north.

God is faithful though, bringing us through every journey, every trial and preparing us all along the way to follow his call. Sometimes following that call isn't always easy and try as we may adjusting to new places can take longer than we'd like. This is a journey Max and I are still both on and I guess in some ways it's a comfort to see in him the same things I see in me. I enjoyed being with him this week. He's becoming such a wonderful young man and we don't always get much time to ourselves.

Out of the mouthes of Babes

2008-06-26T14:16:00.003-05:00

Mark and I have been simply passing each other most days now that it's summer time and we're shuffling the kids all over town while trying to get in our own work days. Last night we finally had about an hour to relate the days events and he told me a story I just thought was hilarious.

It's VBS this week at our church and apparantly there's a little boy who keeps saying, "Oh s--t!" over and over in front of all the other children. His teachers and the VBS director have told him several times that's unacceptable but to no avail. Well yesterday, the director asked if Mark would pull the little boy aside and have a chat with him. So Mark, the little boy and the director of VBS stepped into Mark's office. Mark asked the little boy to have a seat on his ottoman while Mark sat across from him. Mark said he was just this tiny little thing; although compared to Mark most little people do appear tiny, but he said he had these cute little Cars tennis shoes on, from the movie and his feet were just dangling off the edge of his seat. Mark said, "where have you heard that word before, ____?" and he said, "at home." Mark said, "why do you say that word?" and he said with a smile on his face, "Because I'm a big boy, I'm 4 now." Mark said it took everything in him not to laugh. He kindly restated that was not a good word to use and he needed to find something else to say instead and even gave a few suggestions.

We've had two recent deaths in our congregation so it was pleasant to hear Mark tell me something that gave each of us a good chuckle.

Happy Birthday Mark

2008-06-20T18:07:00.003-05:00

My Love

Handsome Hubby

Father of our children

It's Mark's birthday today! The big 3-5! He's a wonderful husband, father, son, friend and pastor. I'm always thankful that God brought us together all those years ago. I was attending college at Kansas State University and he was at the University of Pittsburgh. I went on a summer beach project with Campus Crusade for Christ in San Diego and one of my roommates was from the University of Alabama. One of Mark's high school buddies also attended the University of Alabama and after three years at Pitt Mark decided to transfer. He moved into a house with that same friend and several other guys. I had already visited the campus and was planning on transferring when I went down again for break in January. Mark had just moved in! My best friend's twin brother lived in the house Mark moved into so during a trip there one afternoon we met. I was instantly taken with his height and his good looks. This will so go to his head!

We began talking and over another trip to Tuscaloosa during my Spring Break we began dating. We would talk often and write letters a lot. That summer I was studying in Italy so he wrote me letters every day and I would rush back to the study center just to get that precious note. After returning back to Kansas that summer I flew to Pennsylvania and we both knew at that point we would be together the rest of our lives.

Mark proposed that fall and we were married that summer. The same weekend as my middle sister and her husband. What an event that was for the whole family. Those memories are treasured ones, often seeming like only yesterday but when we consider what's happened since then so much has transpired. We've lived in 5 different states and 8 different houses and have had 4 amazing children.

God knew what he was doing, winding a path with many curves along the way for the both of us to get to Alabama. I'm so glad he did! Mark is the love of my life and not a day goes by that I'm not thankful for the man he is. He's a father that is always there for his kids, attending games and volunterring in their schools, chaperoning field trips and singing songs on his guitar. The kids know that they're his #1 priority, all things come after family. He's a pastor that people relate to and enjoy being around. Seeking advice and comfort but also spending time doing non-pastor things, making him real just like the rest of us. Mark is the same man he was nearly 13 years ago when I met him and yet more of a man than I ever knew he'd be. I love you!

Beach Pics

2008-06-18T08:05:00.006-05:00

The Kids had a wonderful time in Galveston with Mark's parents. They came down to help me for a few days while Mark was gone and planned a great trip for the kids. We are so fortunate to be only 1.5 hours from the beach. Mark Thomas brought home tons of sea shells! Mark's Mom also installed a webcam for us while they were here and the kids are loving it! It's so simple to use and they send messages back and forth all day. Last night they talked live! Mark had to pick me up at work last night, he's been riding his bike to work to conserve on gas and get some good excercise so we traded at Noon and did the summer drop off with the kids, which meant I was at work without a car. He asked his Dad if he could babysit the two older boys on the webcam while he went to pick me up. Cross Country Babysitting at its finest!

Swim Season First

2008-06-14T20:15:00.003-05:00

Today was a day unlike any other for us in our world of swimming. We have missed the swim team in Auburn like one would miss a dear friend. The organization was run so efficiently and the coaching staff was superb. Not to mention the facilities of nearly all the Y's we swam against in Central New York. Top notch compared to what we've seen so far down here in Southeast Texas. We're not complaining, well not too much, but needless to say it's been a rather large adjustment. It has been nearly a year and a half since Max and Ben swam competitively and we thought they'd be a little rusty. They started three weeks ago swimming 4 nights a week for an hour and a half. We decided to debut another Keffer as well. Mark Thomas joined the ranks this year and is loving it! Our new coaches here are great too!

Well today we had our first meet of the season. Outside! Although that's not unusual down here, we practice outside and all the teams compete outside. It's just new to us. Not sure there's too much of an adjustment though, the heat of Texas or the heat of an indoor pool with nearly 100 people packed in bleachers. But one thing was new to us...RAIN! The boys swam in pouring rain, no lightening, so the meet proceeded to chug right along. It didn't rain the whole time, just off and on. Finally the last heat was completed and just as the swimmers exited the water, a torrential down pour occurred. We all waited under what they call Easy Up Tents and then the boys decided to make a run for it! We got soaked and Max thought I looked particularly funny once we got in the car. Ben jumped to defend me from the back seat saying, "Mom, I think you like fine." Thanks Ben.

Max gave everyone a run for their money. Our club is always the most competitive and we won today's meet by more than 300 points! But Max quickly established himself as the new kid to beat. He started off in the 100 IM taking first overall and brought some whispers to the crowd. Being the proud mom, I just beamed inside. He then went on to swim the 50 FREE, they don't do 100s or 200s until they're 13 or older. Can you believe that, Jake?! Well they put Max in a heat with two other swimmers and he came in first without doing a flip turn, don't ask me why he didn't do that. The next heat the announcer said this is the heat to watch, it's a group of swimmers you'll want to see. Well, Max beat all their times and took first overall in the 50 FREE by over 3 seconds! He also came in first in the 50 Breastroke! I know enough, enough. Sorry, but we were all so proud of him.

Now onto the other boys. Ben and Mark Thomas are also fast Freestylers. The coach of the older kids saw MT swim for the first time and she said, "I cannot believe how fast and how good he looks for never having competed before. He's great!" Both he and Ben put those heads down and go to work, some of the older kids don't breathe as well as they do. Ben swam 23 seconds in the 25 Free and got 3rd in his heat in the backstroke. Mark Thomas came in 1st in his heat in the Free and 1st in his heat for the backstroke. They're all anxious to get their ribbons on Monday.

We're off to a great start and they're loving the sport again. It's not the same as swimming with the Stingrays but we'll make do. Keeping a love for a sport alive that was born and cultivated in Central NY!

Last night of quiet

2008-06-12T22:03:00.002-05:00

Tonight is my last night alone. Mark's parents come home tomorrow with the children. They've had a wonderful time at the beach. They called earlier tonight and said they went to eat dinner at Rain Forest Cafe and they got a volcano cake for Ella's birthday. Don't panic, her birthday isn't until the end of September, but being such wonderful grandparents as they are they wanted to celebrate early since they most likely will not be here with us then. So Pat said Ella played right along. Possible therapy later on but what the heck, right.

Mark Thomas told me he has collected a ton of sea shells and Max and Ben's responses are always no more than one word so I'm sure I'll get more out of then once they return home.

I've tried to get in some extra hours this week but really just longed to be at home surrounded by the lack of noise. Although I love my children dearly, the noise level can sometimes get to you. Both good noise and bad noise. Laughter and screaming sometimes at the end of the day it's hard to distinguish between the two when you're simply worn out.

Mark gets home tomorrow too. We're all excited about that! It's been really odd not having him here for the past two weeks. I dare to say it's gone by rather fast, but for him I know it has not. I have such a wonderful husband. Some husbands travel and work long hours and although they may miss home, don't give it much of a thought, but my husband truly loves to be nowhere else but at home. He was ready to head back home by the second day and has been counting down the minutes the last few days. He misses all of us and I can hear in his voice how ready he is to be back amongst the craziness. You have to love that about him! He's a great Dad and we'll celebrate him this weekend, and his return!

Must See Movie

2008-06-07T15:52:00.002-05:00

I took the kids to see Kung Fu Panda today and it did not disappoint! We all had a really great time. I love listening to us all laugh in unison. We have a great $1 theatre about 20 minutes away in Silsbee and they're always showing what's current. The Keffer Crew gives it two thumbs up!

Just in Case

2008-06-03T14:04:00.003-05:00

Just so you don't think I've lost my mind with Mark being gone. Ella's FIRST sleepover was not with Becki's little man, Parker, it was with his older sister Kendall. Her Dad is a minister of the word and sacrament you know, we have values to uphold!

Sister Sister

2008-06-03T08:06:00.006-05:00

Poor Ella. I've had to arrange for some people to help me watch her this week since Mark is gone and I still have to work. One of our wonderful neighbors, Becki is watching her today along with her sweet little man, Parker and last night to make things easier, asked if Ella could just spend the night with them. Ella was ecstatic. "This is my first sleep over, Momma", she said. She got a bath,put on her jammies and I blow dried her hair and we packed her small bag together. Then the two of us slipped out of the house and around the corner to Becki's, while her brothers were watching t.v. We all woke up this morning, got ready for school and absolutely none of them have even noticed she's gone! It must just be a man thing!

I can do it, I can do it, I can do it

2008-06-01T20:50:00.002-05:00

Mark leaves tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. for Austin and will be gone for two weeks. It's the beginning of his doctorate. He's been reading and writing for the past several weeks and hopefully will be done in 5 years. 5 years! A lot will happen during those five years I'm sure but Mark is so happy to be starting this journey so I of course am excited for him! Maybe not quite so excited to be without him for two weeks but we'll muddle through somehow.

I've been working on painting the front of the house and we've got landscaping being done hopefully this week so we're on the road to a much improved exterior. It's been fun to see the transformation. I'll try to get before and after photos up when it's all done.

The kids begin their last week of school tomorrow. Totally hard to believe. Summer starts on Friday at Noon. Thankfully we've got grandparents coming from Pennsylvania the following Monday and they'll cart the kids off to Galveston to kick the summer off with a bang!

Last Additions

2008-05-15T17:25:00.004-05:00

I had wanted to include this in my last post and forgot. I had another wonderful Mother's day this year. Being the mother of four children is something I would never have thought I'd use to describe myself. But, the reality is so much sweeter than I could ever have imagined. Our children are amazing, crazy, loud, silly, helpful at times, smart, caring, kind when they want to be, and they each tell me without inhibition how much they love me several times a day. Max came up with what to give me this year as a gift and each of the kids made something special for me. The only reason I'm posting Mark Thomas' is because I was so overwhelmed by it. He woke up as usual bright and early Sunday morning, I heard him open his door down the hallway and he ran into my room and handed me this note. I could barely open my eyes, and couldn't focus on the words, so I asked him to read it to me. When he did, I nearly cried. Mark Thomas is 100% boy but he has the sweetest heart and he loves his Momma as you can see. What a treasure this note will always be to me.

More Than I Bargained For

2008-05-15T15:24:00.007-05:00

Well, this morning was supposed to be a relatively uneventful trip to the doctor's office. The boys needed physicals for Camp this summer and Ella needed a physical along with shots before she can go to kindergarten in the fall. They all lined up to be weighed and measured.

Ella weighed 56 pounds and was 4 feet .5 inches tall.

Mark Thomas weighed 62 pounds and was 4 feet 6 inches tall.

Ben weighed 70 pounds and was 4 feet 7 1/4 inches tall.

Max weighed 90 pounds and was 5 feet 3 inches tall.

I had been talking for the past week or so about Ella getting shots and had prepared the boys to be supportive and kind big brothers. Well after the Dr. came in and started looking at MT's chart she said, "he'll need two boosters today." The look that Ben gave me was priceless! I honestly did not know that any one other than Ella was going to need shots but it turned out my suggestions for support and kindness would be needed for the entire room. Max needed four shots, Ella five and Ben and MT two each.YIKES! Had I known I would have made Mark tag along for moral support too.

The kids did great. I told them we'd go get ice-cream after if everyone could remain calm. Ella had one little tear roll down her cheek, but she laid perfectly still and never said a word. Max giggled saying he felt strong already. Too much media about baseball and steroids lately for him. MT was a champ as always, such a high pain tolerance after three surgeries as a baby and Ben, well, there had to be one out of the four. As I mentioned earlier his anxiety started early and did not go away. So he went last, but put up a good fight. The nurse said, don't flex your muscle several times and finally I had to say, that is just how his arm is. That boy is solid muscle, not an ounce of fat anywhere, so she plunged away. He cried sweet tears into my shoulder and after two pokes we were done.

I'm thankful for four healthy children who are now immunized for at least a few years. Next time, Mark will be the parent on duty.

My two little beauties! No, not the boys, my new washer and dryer! For those of you with large families, you can feel my pain. With four, active children and two parents constantly on the go with them, our laundry loads are crazy. So these two little beauties have been such a welcomed addition to our home. Is it wrong to love your washer and dryer this much? They play sweet music for me when they're done and make our clothes smell so good. If only someone would come up with a machine to fold and put it all away.